Sloth's Third Great Plan
by Jessie Wings
Summary: Sloth has a third brilliant plan. It involves androids, and it involves Armageddon. Can Jess, Blanche and Tigger stop it from ever happening? COMPLETE! Yay!
1. Diana Wattle

On a Space Station in orbit around Neopia – cunningly called the Virtupets Space Station – a teenage girl was standing with her ear to the door.

This girl was a reporter for Neopia's best – and only – newspaper, the Neopian Times. She'd decided it would be a good idea to investigate Sloth's evil plan, because that was the kind of thing Neopian reporters _did_ – and besides, she wanted the cool avatar, and she only had six articles so far.

So far, she hadn't heard much. The doors were impossibly thick. She couldn't hear anything through them.

And then, unfortunately for her, it opened to reveal none other than Doctor Sloth and a twitchy Green Techo assistant.

"Who are you?" Sloth's booming voice sounded. The girl jumped and clutched her notebook defensively (and pathetically, I might add).

"I... I..." the reporter stumbled around for a suitable argument. Then she thought of one. "You can't hurt me, bozo. I don't even exist here." Confidence restored, she brought herself to her full height – 5 feet – and glared smugly at the towering meglomaniac.

The meglomaniac smiled absently at the naïve girl. How naïve she was. Then he barked sharply, "I asked you for your name, girl. Answer me!"

The girl crossed her arms, the notebook dangling perilously loosely from her left hand. "I don't have to tell you anything," she told him confidently. "If I can't get a story on your evil plan, I guess I'll go and do a food review of Grundo's café." With a sharp nod, she turned around.

"STEVENS!" Sloth barked. The twitchy Techo sprung into action and leapt towards the glowering girl, grabbing her arms from behind and whirling her around to see Sloth. The girl dropped her notebook in the desperate struggle to break free, but the Techo was deceptively strong.

"Let – go," she mumbled as fiercely as a mumble could get. "I want that avatar."

Sloth laughed very loudly. "Tell me your name," he said, "and I'll consider letting you go."

The bold teenager sighed. If it would let her write her article in time, fine. "Diana Wattle," she admitted reluctantly. "Will you let me go now?"

"I said I'd consider it," Sloth told her. "Now I have considered it, I've decided not to."

Diana was furious and aimed a fierce kick at where she assumed Doctor Sloth's knee was. It wasn't. Stevens tightened his grip on her arms, causing her to cry out.

"What do you want me to do with her?" asked Stevens humbly, almost hesitantly, to Sloth.

Sloth considered this question and grinned a malicious grin. "How about we test our little Duplicator?" he suggested. Sloth and Stevens shared a knowing evil grin for a moment, confusing Diana to no end.

"What Duplicator?" she asked. Both parties ignored her and Stevens – who was, in fact, shorter than her (but not by much) – started dragging her away. "You can't hurt me!" Diana protested angrily. "I don't even exist!"

"Quiet," Stevens hissed, thrusting the teenager forth into a room. Diana was startled to discover that it had what looked suspiciously like a dentists' chair as the centrepiece, accompanied by a large dome that looked like it would fit snugly over her head. Beside the chair, there was a large control panel, with many more buttons, switches and levers than Diana would have thought necessary.

"What are you doing?" she demanded of the Techo, forgetting her instructions to be quiet. "What will happen?"

Stevens was busily stuffing the teenager into the chair and binding her to it with also deceptively strong velcro straps. Once the dome was safely over her head, he chose to answer.

"The great and noble Doctor has made a brilliant discovery," he boasted, "one with which he will take over the whole of Neopia. He is quite aware that it works on Neopians... and you have a great privilege, my dear."

"What's that?" Diana asked suspiciously.

Unseen by Diana, Stevens grinned maliciously. "You," he told the girl happily, "will help Sloth adapt the machine for Terrans."

"Terrans?" Diana asked blankly. "I'm not bloody Terran, I'm human."

"They are one and the same," Stevens told the girl. "I feel I should warn you that you will probably die in the process."

Diana shrugged. "If Sloth's as pathetic an evil genius as all reports say he is, the most I'll get will be a mild headache."

Stevens chose not to answer. Let her think that, if she wished. The first thing he did was to press a nice shiny green button, flick an equally shiny red switch and pull a not-very-shiny metal lever.

He grinned as the girl under the dome started to whimper, then croak, and finally she started screaming. Diana worriedly realised that surely any Neopet would have enough conscience to turn the machine off. It was killing her.

Little did Diana know Stevens wasn't a Neopet.


	2. Bring the Uni

Jess Smith of 168353 Magical Road felt that, had she lived in the northern hemisphere of her own planet, she would love May. As it was, on her own planet it was currently extremely windy, but it hadn't rained because it was in a drought.

It was seven-thirty Saturday morning. Three of Jess's pets – the vain Brown Uni aussiejewel, the cynical Mutant Techo Saint and the active Baby Kougra Tigger – hadn't yet stumbled out of bed to appreciate the beautiful morning. The fourth, a mostly quiet and rather intelligent Faerie Uni called Blanche, had, but she was eagerly reading the weekly edition of the Neopian Times – Neopia's best, not forgetting only, newspaper.

"I don't believe it!" Blanche declared suddenly. Jess peered over her shoulder.

"I don't get it," Jess replied. "What's so interesting about a bunch of Flotsams fighting over a cake?"

"Not the comics," Blanche stated witheringly. She pointed at the other page. "They discovered a girl floating in outer space."

"Oh," Jess replied, strolling away and reaching up into a cupboard for cereal. "That's not incredibly interesting either, you know. Girls go missing all the time. As," she added hastily, "do boys. If not more so because they're dumber."

Blanche rolled her eyes. "That's not the interesting part," she complained. "They identified her as a Neopian Times reporter, Diana Wattle. With the user name of dianaw150291."

"So?" asked Jess defiantly.

Blanche flipped the page to another article. "Read the by-line."

Jess obliged. "By dianaw150291," she read. "That can't be right."

"Told you it was interesting," Blanche gloated. "So, I was thinking, maybe we should take a trip up to the..."

NO! Jess was not going up to the space station. She wouldn't waste a perfectly beautiful May day with a trip to the space station. In space. Where there's not beautiful weather.

"No," Jess told her pet. "It's gorgeous."

"But don't you want to know what happened?" Blanche enquired sweetly.

"I'm not a detective," replied Jess. "I'm not a reporter, any more, either."

Blanche wondered if Jess was ever going to realise that the Neopian system didn't work like that.

"You could do something!" Blanche protested.

"Why should I?" Jess shot back. "All I ever do is get into trouble. I got arrested for stealing some stuff I didn't, I got trapped in a cave with a cave-sealing maniac, I was zapped into a simulation thanks to someone who can't even spell simulator..."

Blanche pulled a face. "You don't have to go," Blanche said. "I will. With... with Saint."

A sleepy yawn was heard from the doorway. Jess turned her head to see an aussiejewel who had perfectly combed her mane already.

"What'sis about Saint?" aussiejewel asked, merging words together. "Where's he going?"

"I was going to take Saint to the Space Station with me," explained Blanche.

"Only she's not," added Jess, "because I'm not having my pets in orbit around an alien planet when I'm not there."

"Then you come with us," said aussiejewel. "You're such an idiot, Mum."

"I am not!" Jess declared angrily.

"Are too," argued aussiejewel. "The Space Station can be fun. Sloth was expelled from there years ago. Now there's just gross food and weird robot things that follow you everywhere."

"That's your idea of fun?" asked Jess incredulously.

"Mum!" aussiejewel yelled exasperatedly. "You don't have to go there if you're too chicken."

"I'm not chicken!" Jess yelled back. One of Jess's character flaws was that reverse psychology worked on her without fail.

"No, it's all right," aussiejewel assured her. "I won't tell anyone."

"There's nothing to not tell!" Jess exclaimed. "I'm not scared of the Space Station."

"No no no, it really is all right," said aussiejewel, holding up a hoof.

"But – but -" spluttered Jess. "I'll prove I'm not chicken!" she declared. "I'm going to go to the Space Station with you guys!"

aussiejewel grinned at Blanche. Jess's angry face disappeared, to be replaced by a sullen one.

"That," said Jess, "was a very good piece of acting."

aussiejewel smiled at her too. Despite what every one of the 243 million Neopians thought, she wasn't stupid at all. "So it's settled then," she said triumphantly.

"I suppose," Jess grumbled. There went her plan of enjoying the beautiful day.

* * *

Jess thought it somewhat ridiculous to wear warm clothes on the wonderfully warm spring day, but the Space Station was very, very cold, so she'd brought a long a jacket and scarf.

"Don't worry," she'd told aussiejewel when putting it on. "There are no jelly babies in Neopia, remember?"

"Just like there's no TV in Neopia," aussiejewel had replied. Well, that was true. And it was also true that the Smiths had a TV – but it only worked half the time.

Jess and her motley gang hopped off the shuttle onto the Space Station.

"Where do we begin?" Blanche asked eagerly. "The airlocks?"

"Of course not!" Jess replied. "The café."

"Why?"

"Because I'm hungry," Jess answered truthfully. "aussiejewel, you have a magnetic attraction for trouble, where do you say we should go? After the café."

aussiejewel hesitated and pointed to her left.

"Excellent," decided Jess. "We'll go the other way."

"But if she a magnetic attraction that won't work," Blanche protested. "The trouble would just follow us in the new direction."

Jess sighed. "Couldn't you use some of that intelligence to fix the TV?" she asked.

Blanche clomped a hoof on the steel flooring. "I told you already!" she cried. "Connecting to a TV station in another universe is a highly risky endeavour."

"Which means it's impossible that it even works at all, I know," Jess replied miserably.

* * *

"Doctor!" yet another twitchy Techo, yellow this time, exclaimed. "Doctor! Sir!" He started to run around the room in circles and flap his arms, even though it couldn't possibly help him communicate with Sloth any faster.

This room happened to be a surveillance room, and the twitchy Techo in question had sighted five of the people on Doctor Sloth's list of 62635 Enemies That Are Not To Live If I Can Possibly Help It.

"Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiir!" the Techo exclaimed, flapping his arms around.

Sloth's face appeared on a nearby communication device. "Good heavens, Dickens!" he exclaimed. "What are you, a madman?"

"Sorry, sir," the Techo stated, immediately calming down. "I have detected five persons on your hit list."

"Ah!" Sloth grinned. "Who?"

"Uhhh..." Dickens checked the list. "Smiths."

"All 886 of them?" Sloth enquired incredulously.

"Of course not, sir," was the response.

"Then who?"

"Ummm..." Dickens consulted his list again. "Jessica Smith, aussiejewel Smith, BeatofSaint01 Smith, tigger2002guy Smith, bubbles2003neo Smith."

"Is that it?"

"I did say _five_ persons, sir," was Dickens' reply.

"_Bite your tongue!_" Sloth barked angrily. Dickens obliged and got a load of blood in his mouth from biting his tongue too hard.

"Thorry, thir," he apologised. Sloth held his hand to his head.

"Any idea what they're here for?" he spat at his servant.

"Yeth," Dickens replied. "We put audio thurveillance on them."

"Well, what are they here for?"

Dickens paused. "To invethtigate the murder of Diana Wattle, thir."

"But that was..." Sloth paused. "A year ago, wasn't it?"

"Only becauthe you time-travelled for four month, thir," was the dutiful response.

"Oh, of course," Sloth's cold reply came. "Bring the Uni to me."

"Which?"

"Either. Both. It doesn't matter." Sloth sighed as he realised his assistant would assume the 'it doesn't matter' to forget to give the order. "Try the Brown one." He paused. "aussiejewel."

"Yeth, thir," Dickens' replied. He switched Sloth's face away and replaced it with a Mutant Grundo Commander.

"Order your men to kidnap a female Brown Uni," he instructed, pleased at his so far having avoided the letter 's'. "But do it thecretly."

"Any particular Brown Uni?" the Grundo Commander demanded, his voice as tough as his muscles.

"Yeth, yeth," Dickens replied. "Her name ith authiejewel Thmith."

The Grundo Commander nodded. "Orders understood." His picture faded away.

Dickens celebrated by spitting the blood in his mouth into a nearby bin and then proceeding to do the chicken dance.


	3. aussiejewel's Android Twin

Space Station tea wasn't very good, Jess thought. It was all chemicals and no tea leaves. Jess disgustedly tipped the substance masquerading as tea into the café disposal unit, and turned around to face three pets. _Three_.

"Mum," the Baby Kougra, Tigger, exclaimed worriedly. "aussiejewel disappeared."

"See? She _does_ have a magnetic attraction for trouble," said Jess calmly. "Where'd she go?"

"If we knew that," replied Blanche, "she wouldn't be missing."

"Good point." Jess sighed. "I _knew_ this would happen. It always does. No excursion _ever_ runs smoothly for us."

"I agree," a grouchy Saint growled. "Now we have to waste time _looking_ for her."

Jess nodded. "So where were you when she disappeared?"

"The airlock," replied Blanche quickly. "Outside it, I mean. But aussiejewel wouldn't have gotten into the airlock."

"True," Jess sighed. This day was all wrong. "Could she have been captured?"

"By who?" Saint demanded in his usual rough tone. "If you're suggesting that Doctor Sloth had anything to do with it, I assure you that you're sorely mistaken."

Jess stared at the Mutant Techo. "Come now, Saint," she told him, "we can't live in ignorance forever. There is an awful lot of evidence against him."

"That's not what you said yesterday. Are you saying that you were wrong?"

"Not wrong!" Jess insisted. "Just... uh, misguided." She nodded triumphantly.

"He has nothing to do with it," Saint insisted. "He's as innocent as..."

"Lord Kass?" Jess suggested helpfully. Saint glared at her.

"_No_," Saint insisted. "I suppose next you'll be saying that Jhudora is involved, too."

Jess shook her head slowly. "She's not even here," she said.

"Neither's Sloth, yet," Saint replied grumpily. He always seemed grumpy.

Jess ignored her oldest – but second – pet. "Well," she said, "let's head for the top floor."

"But we're not allowed there," Tigger protested.

"Exactly," Jess replied brightly. "Come on."

Tigger and Blanche exchanged a look. Yes, Jess was _definitely_ insane.

* * *

It was dark. Darkness was never a good thing. It was very rare to find a good guy who enjoyed dark, gloomy lairs, underground or on spaceships or otherwise. The centrepiece of the room was a large tasteless green dentists' chair.

It wasn't, of course. Not even dentists with the largest drills in the Universe could inflict the amount of pain the chair – or rather, the device near the chair – was capable of.

Only a metre away from the slab stood a metal control panel. The metal panel had several dozen buttons, levers and switches, all designed by what could only be considered Neopia's greatest sadist. Who that sadist was, no one had any idea.

Strapped to the large dentists' chair was a Brown Uni, barely recognisable as aussiejewel. Why she was there, she had no idea. In fact, she didn't have much of a clue who she was anymore, almost as though her memories were being extracted by the sheer pain the heavily cloaked... pet behind the panel was enjoying inflicting. In actual fact, she wasn't so far off.

"Please stop," she croaked in a brief respite. "Who are you?"

Unseen by the Uni, the cloaked pet smiled and flicked a switch. He waited until the pet screamed, and then screamed louder, before flicking it off.

"Please," aussiejewel sobbed. "I didn't mean any... I don't even remember..."

The cloaked, sadistic pet remembered. The machine had extracted her memories, her personality... everything required for the purpose.

And oh yes, there was a purpose. A brilliant purpose, devised by none other than the great Doctor Frank Sloth himself. The evil genius who had discovered the centuries-old machine deep beneath the surface of Mystery Island. He had a plan. He always had a plan. But this plan... this plan would not fail. It couldn't. Not after the years of work, not after the time travelling, not after the months of kidnappings...

The cloaked figure flicked a switch and pulled a lever to reprimand aussiejewel for her sobbing. He checked a reading on the console. Her mind was nearly absorbed. Then physical duplication could begin.

aussiejewel had no idea of this. She assumed – as any sane person not yet been driven insane by excruciating pain would – that she was going to die. She would eventually, no doubt, but she would be kept alive now. If the great and noble Doctor's plan went a little awry, she – and the other kidnappees selected randomly from various places across the planet – would assist in plan B.

aussiejewel's head slumped backwards. The pain was exhausting her. Very soon, she would lapse into unconsciousness, in which case the cloaked pet would have to wait to complete the other tiny bit of absorption. That was the problem with impossibly advanced but ancient technology – it relied on the victim's consciousness. The cloaked figure would have to hold off on the buttons and levers. The Doctor would not be happy with any delays. Not so close to Armageddon...

* * *

"So, all-knowing mum," Tigger declared, "what do you think Sloth's plan is?"

"How am I meant to know?" asked Jess frustratedly. "It's not like Sloth's dumb enough to put up a bulletin board with his evil plan on it."

However, just at that moment... no one saw a bulletin board with Sloth's evil plan on it. Bother.

"Where could aussiejewel be?" Jess mainly asked herself.

"Maybe that's the wrong question," Blanche interrupted. "Let's assume for a moment that Sloth didn't capture aussiejewel."

"Assumed," Jess nodded. "Cups of tea for everyone!"

"Wait," Blanche interrupted her owner. "If aussiejewel had free rein in the space station, where would she go?"

The others – who apart from Jess and Tigger included a sullen and untalking Saint – thought about this question.

"Splat-A-Sloth," Tigger decided suddenly.

"Brilliant!" Jess exclaimed excitedly. "aussiejewel detests Sloth!"

Tigger nodded. "That's why I suggested it."

Jess nodded as well. "Come on!" she instructed, and led everyone back to the lift.

* * *

In another underground chamber, there was a large glass box. Attached to another machine, this box was apparently empty, until a pair of eyes appeared.

The eyes were soon followed by a head – a silver, mechanical head. Following the head came a neck, a body and some legs – all silver and mechanical, all bolts and nuts and steel. Then, just as out of nowhere as the robot, came a synthetic skin appeared around the robot, followed soon by brown fur, lighter on the head, a dark mane and a pale tail.

In fact, it was the exact duplicate of the Uni that was being tortured.

The glass box flipped back and the robot, which had been completely still moments before, stepped away, taking in the scene. She didn't speak. Her robotic eyes expressed confusion at the scene around her.

She utterly confused robot Uni trotted to a nearby communications device, identical to the one in the duplication chamber. Just as she began to lift a hoof to poke the machine, Doctor Sloth's ugly green face appeared.

"Congratulations," he beamed. "You are aussiejewel Smith."

"Yes," the Uni agreed blandly.

"You are one of Doctor Sloth's fighting force."

"Yes," the Uni agreed.

"You are aware of your purpose."

"Yes," the Uni answered. Not very creative, was she? Sloth hoped it wasn't a fault with the vocal circuitry.

"Then," he intoned, "you will head to your house and let it be done."

The Uni nodded quickly. She was not just a Uni – albeit a robotic Uni. She was aussiejewel Smith.

* * *

Jess and her three pets found the Splat-A-Sloth game aussiejewel-less.

"Well then," Jess sighed, "she _was_ captured."

"Who was?" enquired an innocent voice. The four family members turned around to see aussiejewel, as unruffled as she had been earlier.

"Where have you been?" Jess demanded angrily – after all, it was the Uni's fault she was wasting her lovely day!

"Around," aussiejewel shrugged. "I went to the Café, watched some Gormball, brushed up on my spelling..."

Jess turned her reproachful glare to her other pets. "You worrywarts," she chided. "Fancy thinking that Sloth was up to no good! Impossible!"

"Oh, _now_ you realise," Saint muttered.

"Anyway," Jess continued, ignoring Saint, "I think we should all go back home. What do you say?"

"But we didn't learn anything about Diana!" Blanche fumed. "aussiejewel..."

"I'm quite tired," aussiejewel explained apologetically. "I'd rather like to return home, too."

Jess beamed. "Good girl. Come along, everyone... _I_ have your return tickets."


	4. Countdown to Armageddon

Two months later.

Two months later, Sloth's plan had furthered. Roughly one in a hundred residents – that was, nearly 2,440,000 residents – were not actually in the community at all, but replaced by android duplicates.

That was his plan. He would attack Neopia from within. He would start an Armageddon.

And there was the large red button. Press that, and the androids – currently programmed to believe they were pets – would switch programs to be killing machines. They would slaughter Neopia. Sloth would rule.

* * *

aussiejewel's android twin, blissfully unaware of this, happily munched at a chocolate bar and read the latest issue of NeoFashion magazine. Her sister sat across the table from her, reading a newspaper.

"Unbelievable," Blanche muttered. aussiejewel looked up.

"Hm?"

"They found four pets and three owners that were, in fact, androids," Blanche replied.

aussiejewel shrugged. "So?" she asked.

"Well, why would there be seven androids wondering around Neopia?" Blanche explained. "Someone's been up to no good."

"Like who?" aussiejewel enquired sweetly. "Doctor Sloth?"

"Probably," Blanche replied.

aussiejewel nodded smugly. "Always knew he was no good."

"What're you reading?" Jess rapidly strolled into the lounge room where the two Unis were having this discussion.

"They found androids," Blanche said, "masquerading as Neopians."

"Did they?" Jess asked, nodding. "Where are the real ones?"

"No one knows. Currently the theory is some mishap with the Lab Ray."

"You disagree, don't you?" Jess asked solemnly. "Well, if you do, excellent. I do too."

"You haven't even read the article yet!"

"Yes I have!" Jess cried indignantly. "Benefits of an Australian time zone. I read it while you were in bed."

"Well, what do you think?" Blanche asked seriously.

"I think someone's been up to no good," replied Jess, unaware that had been Blanche's theory exactly, to the last word.

"But _who?_" aussiejewel pressed. "I think it's Sloth."

"You always think it's Sloth."

"Well, it usually is."

Jess smiled. That was true. "It could, of course, be a random evil person no one's heard of," she told the two pets.

"The possibility of that happening is rather small," Blanche protested.

"_You calculated it?_"

"Well, given that the ratio of 'good' people to 'evil' people is seven to two, it would seem rather large," Blanche began, "but in actual fact it's not, because nine million nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of ten million, they just _support_ evil, not dare start it. That means the ratio of..."

aussiejewel found herself more interested by these statistics than she would under ordinary circumstances. She assumed it was the effect of too much milk and decided to have NeoCola to put some junk back into her.

Jess was just as bewildered by Blanche's mathematical theory as aussiejewel should have been. "Right," she said, after Blanche finally finished her description. "You could have been a rocket scientist."

Blanche beamed. Her beam was cut short by Jess's next remark.

"So now we have to make sure that no one's controlling these androids. Or can."

Blanche sighed. "Weren't you listening?" she growled. "The chance of a random person being the culprit is approximately one in forty-five million!"

Jess decided to pretend she had. "Oh, I know," she said. "I just think we should rule out the improbable first."

"You didn't, did you?"

"Yes I did!" Jess protested. "Forty-four million nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine people out of forty-five million aren't interested in world domination. There you go."

Blanche continued to stare at Jess.

"Fine," said Jess eventually. "We'll go with my plan. My new and improved plan."

"Which is?" aussiejewel asked.

"We'll go and see Doctor Sloth!" she grinned triumphantly.

"That was my plan," Blanche protested.

Jess opened her mouth to say something, closed it, and opened it again. "Only after I thought of it," she lied. Before Blanche had time to formulate a response, Jess added to her sentence. "Now. no arguing. Either of you. We have to get your brothers ready for the shuttle."

aussiejewel grinned bemusedly as Blanche glared at Jess and Jess walked away apparently ignorant. They were like those two on the TV, when it worked. The Doctor and Romana, she believed their names were.

* * *

"Now!" Sloth declared loudly. His large, ugly green finger descended towards the bright red, shiny button...

And then it was pressed. Armageddon had begun.


	5. Final Destruction

aussiejewel, all alone in the kitchen and reading her magazine again, suddenly changed. She instantly forgot her identity, most of her memories, everything. She knew one thing, and one thing only.

_Kill._

aussiejewel looked away from her magazine, a strange glint in her eyes. She turned her gaze to her hooves. They were strong, and metal. They would destroy sufficiently.

The crazed robot then jumped off the stool and walked the route to her brother Saint's room, to find her owner prodding him.

"Saint," Jess was saying. "You have to get out of bed."

"Don't want to," came the sleepy response.

aussiejewel thought nothing of this exchange. She approached her owner, left front hoof outstretched.

Jess felt something cold and hard on her hip.

"aussiejewel," she protested, "why are you so cold? It's summer on this planet." She paused as her hoof continued to dig into her side. Jess turned to face aussiejewel, and was immediately pushed into the wall. "aussiejewel...?"

aussiejewel lowered her head until her horn was level with Jess's stomach.

"NO!" Jess screamed, squirming violently. She clutched aussiejewel's cool right hoof and tried desperately to shift it. That proved futile, so Jess ducked as aussiejewel rammed her horn right into the wall.

Jess squirmed away from aussiejewel, but got kicked in the jaw.

"Saint!" she screamed. "It's not safe!"

Saint heartily agreed and followed Jess through his bedroom door. To Tigger's room.

"What's the matter?" Blanche, who had been trying to wake Tigger, asked.

"aussiejewel," Jess replied. "Or rather, someone who's masquerading as aussiejewel."

"Masquerading?" Blanche asked in disbelief. "Since when?"

Tigger thought that was a ridiculous question. "_How?_" he asked.

"She's not aussiejewel," Jess replied. "Her skin... was cold. In _July_. On my own planet, maybe, but here..."

"I see," Blanche replied. "Who do you think she is?"

"Not _who_," Jess corrected. "What. She's an android. Well, either that or an alien, but I doubt it."

"You haven't met any," Blanche added helpfully.

"I've met you guys!" Jess countered. "You're not Terran. You're aliens to me."

"Well, that's nice!" Tigger yelled. "aussiejewel's bashing in doors to try and kill us and you have gall to accuse us of _not being from Earth!_"

"Well, you're not," Jess replied. "I don't suppose we have a... a..." Jess strained her memory. "Something that can drain power off?"

"You mean, send her to sleep?" Tigger asked. "I feel like I'm the dumbest one here."

Jess nodded. "Well, that's close enough. Deactivate's a better word for it. Do you have one, Blanche?"

Blanche shook her head. "I might be able to build one, though, with your wires in your gallery."

"I _knew_ they'd come in handy!" Jess beamed. She strolled to the door and opened it to find a glaring aussiejewel. She slammed the door. "I wish your room wasn't on the first floor," Jess moaned, before opening a window. "It's quite a drop," she warned, "but Saint, your door's already been obliterated."

Saint grumbled. "Are you saying we have to jump out the window?"

"Well, not Blanche, she can fly," Jess replied, "but everyone else, yes."

Saint sighed unhappily. "All right," he moaned. The human and her pets landed in a heap on a random bush, while Blanche sailed through the window.

Jess remained silent and reflective as her Techo and Kougra picked themselves off the bush.

"Listen," she breathed softly. Her pets tried, but all they heard was aussiejewel's monotonous banging on the door, and... and...

_Screaming._

"Come on," she said. "Hurry. It's Judgement Day."

Her pets sighed, but followed Jess to her gallery, which was on the same block of land as the house. Not halfway across the yard, the window in Tigger's room shattered.

"Hurry," Jess yelled. The foursome dashed to the gallery and Jess barricaded the wooden door.

"Won't work very well," she surmised. "Hurry, Blanche."

Blanche did her very best, and created a small circular device.

"It lock onto the electric charge powering the android's circuitry, and diverts them from their normal course," she explained.

"Will it work?" Jess asked suspiciously.

Blanche nodded. "It will either deactivate her, or neutralise her."

"Neutralise her?" Jess demanded. "That's no use at all! We won't find out anything from a _blown up_ android."

"_You_ won't find out anything, anyway," Blanche retorted acidly, reclaiming her device. aussiejewel's horn broke through the wood. "Just watch."

As aussiejewel's hoof punctured the door, Blanche smartly attached the device to it. It stuck like a magnet.

"She is deactivated," Blanche declared proudly. The door was opened cautiously to reveal a perfectly stationary aussiejewel.

Jess grinned. "Wonderful," she sighed with relief. "You work your magic, Blanche. Find out exactly what makes her tick."

"She doesn't," Blanche replied jokingly.

"Ha ha," Jess replied sarcastically. "You're hilarious, Blanche. A real riot."

Blanche bowed her head, and set to work examining the android's circuitry.

* * *

Jess lost much of her cheerfulness when she realised that the smashing glass, crunching wood and screaming hadn't stopped. She was very relieved to discover that Blanche had examined the circuitry thoroughly.

"She has a radio signal receiver," Blanche explained. "She has two programs, which are switched by use of the receiver. Her other program is aussiejewel. aussiejewel's entire mind is on this circuitry."

"Where are the signals coming from?" Jess asked.

Blanche sighed. "Virtupets Space Station," Blanche admitted. "I believe Doctor Sloth is responsible."

Jess nodded. "He's started the destruction of Neopia," she admitted guiltily. "The screaming hasn't stopped."

"What do you mean?" Blanche asked. She left the small hut and heard absolutely nothing outside.

"That's very odd," Jess stated. "I think Sloth might have succeeded."

Blanche pulled a face. "So we four are all that's left?"

Jess nodded miserably. "Around here, anyway," she said. "I can't exactly talk about what's happened in Meridell and Krawk Island and the like."

"What about in Neopia Central?" Tigger pressed. "Are Zoe and her pets alive? Jenny?"

Jess shrugged. "We can always check," she suggested. "No one ever said we couldn't check."

Blanche nodded. "Definitely," she agreed. "Alexa could help me."

"We'll be attacked!" Saint argued forcefully. "You can't make me a sitting duck!"

Jess rolled her eyes. "If you _like_," she said acidly, "you can stay here. We'll just go and save Neopia without you."

"I do like," Saint replied, equally as acidly. Jess rolled her eyes.

"Come along, Blanche, Tigger," she instructed. "Saint, I do believe we have some teabags lying around for you." With that, she stormed out of the hut. Blanche rapidly followed and Tigger, after a cautious glance at his brother, followed them both.


	6. A Chat With Zoe

Zoe, one of Jess's best NeoFriends, was a very rich Neopian. Not powerful, but she could always work on that part later. All her four pets were painted and she lived in a fortified, sound-proofed, luxurious mansion.

So she and her pets had had no idea of the carnage until Alexa turned on their TV. Quite unlike Jess's, this TV was actually tuned into Neopian channels, and therefore worked nearly all the time.

"Mom!" Alexa exclaimed in an accent not unlike Zoe's – American. "Mom! COME HERE!"

Zoe sighed and sadly abandoned her breakfast pancake for the thirty seconds it would take to chat to Alexa. "Yes?"

"MOM!" Alexa exclaimed. "Look at the TV."

Zoe looked at the TV, and wrinkled her nose. "I'd rather not," she protested. The TV displayed shots of corpses from Terror Mountain, Tyrannia, Faerieland...

Alexa obligingly switched the machine off. "What do you think happened?"

Zoe paused in thought. "Sloth!" she decided adamantly.

"Anything else?" Alexa enquired. "Any connections?"

"Connections?" Zoe parroted blankly.

"Well," Alexa started, "remember two months ago, that article about Diana Wattle? When she had her own article in the Times that very week?"

"Ye-es..." Zoe lied. Alexa was too smart.

"Do you?" she asked.

"Not really," Zoe admitted.

Alexa sighed in frustration. "Well, do you remember the seven android impersonating Neopians that were in the Times today?"

Zoe paused. "Nooo..."

"Did you even read it?"

"No. Should I have?"

Alexa sighed in frustration again. "_Do you ever read anything important?_"

"Yes!" Zoe insisted. "I read my textbooks! They tell me what to do at school, and school's very..."

"MOM!"

Zoe stuck her tongue out at the Uni and stomped her way to the kitchen, where she found her pancake was missing, and that a small White Ona was sitting next to the plate and licking her lips.

"_Kari!_" Zoe demanded. The Ona jumped in fright. "Have you been stealing my breakfast again?"

"Breakfast," Kari the White Ona repeated.

"Yes," Zoe agreed. "Breakfast."

"Breakfast yummy," Kari summarised, then proceeding to jump off the table and scramble away. Zoe sighed in frustration, and then heard a knock on the door. Curiously, Zoe went to open it, and discovered Jess and two of her pets, Blanche and Tigger.

"What are you doing here?" Zoe asked. "It's only eight in the morning."

Jess ignored her friend and pushed her way inside, slamming the door after her Uni and her Kougra.

"You're safe," she panted, relieved.

"Of course I'm safe," was Zoe's immediate reply. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"No one else is," Jess replied. "The silence is deafening out there."

"I've always wondered how silence could possibly be deafening," Zoe replied, puzzled. "Do you mean no one outside's making a sound?"

"There's no one outside," Jess replied. "Jenny wouldn't open her door. Nor would Retti, nor Leb, nor..."

"Why?" Zoe asked. "Does it have anything to do with all those dead people in Tyrannia and Faerieland and Terror Mountain and..."

"You mean this is _global?_" Jess demanded. Zoe shrugged.

"I guess," she replied weakly.

"This is horrible," Jess complained. "Absolutely horrible. I expected a nice, quiet Saturday, you know. Where I could relax, drink tea, eat chocolate, watch _Doctor Who_ at seven-thirty... instead, I have to take revenge on Doctor Sloth. This is absolutely _fantastic_." Her voice dripped with so much sarcasm that even Zoe realised it was sarcasm, and she was well-known for not understanding it.

"Where're Saint and aussiejewel?" Zoe queried. Jess shrugged.

"Saint," she said venomously, "is at home, being a coward. aussiejewel... I don't know where she is. In fact," she continued, "I have a suspicion that I haven't known where she was for a long time."

"Oh," Zoe replied, not really understanding. "Why?"

"Because," Jess explained, "she was an android. An android who had two programs. One was programmed to believe she _was_ aussiejewel. She had all aussiejewel's memories and personality traits. The other was a killing machine."

"Sooo..." Zoe thought. "So someone had a really, really large satellite thing and switched aussiejewel's program with it?"

"That's my theory," Jess replied. Blanche coughed. "Well, Blanche says it's her theory. But I thought of it first, she just vocalised it before me."

Zoe laughed. "_Jessie!_" Then she thought of something. "So what's your plan?"

"It's brilliant," Jess announced. "We're going to go to the Space Station and take revenge on Sloth."

"That's petty, though," Zoe argued.

"ZOE! I'm not the one who has one Crusher for every citizen of the Universe. _That's_ petty."

"Not the Universe. Just Earth," was Zoe's award-winning defence.

"That's still six billion Crushers," Jess argued. "So, what are you planning to do today, Zoe?"

Zoe thought. "I don't suppose there'll be any TV if there are no TV programmers," she sighed.

"Probably not," Jess agreed.

"Then I'll eat cake," Zoe grinned. "Cake's very healthy, you know."

Jess doubted it, but it wasn't worth arguing the point. "See you later, Zoe."

"See ya!" Zoe waved cheerfully and Jess, Blanche and Tigger left her mansion. Hopefully it was strong enough to withstand some android attacks. That was the advantage in having lots of money: you could buy awesomely powerful upgrades. Even if there _was_ an android in there, the satellite's message telling it to be bad wouldn't have gotten through.

If Jess hadn't ruined it by opening the door.


	7. The Space Shuttle

Jess was increasingly irritated as the trio's problems mounted. Firstly, there were several androids that had killed everyone in the vicinity and that had decided to chase the wandering targets. They'd had to run nine-tenths of the way from Zoe's mansion to the space shuttle centre. After a little panicked waiting, Jess had realised that she couldn't buy tickets because there was no one to buy them from any more, and after stealing a shuttle and barricading herself and her Uni and her Kougra inside it, she also realised she couldn't fly it.

"Can you?" Jess asked her Faerie Uni. The Uni shook her head.

"Bugger," Jess grumbled. "I'll just have to guess."

"You do a lot of guessing," Tigger told his owner as she pulled a few levers and grabbed a hold of an archaic steering wheel.

"Well, I'm usually right," Jess replied while staring at some readings she didn't really understand. The shuttle then started to move, and Jess grinned.

"All right!" she yelled triumphantly. "Now, can I steer it..."

Blanche held a hoof to her forehead. "Just because everyone else is dead doesn't mean we have to join them," she protested. There was a lurch and the shuttle seemed to plummet.

"Relative gravity," Jess explained, even though Blanche knew that. Tigger didn't. "And what was that you said?"

Blanche gritted her teeth. "I said, just because everyone else -" She stopped suddenly as the shuttle swayed violently to each side.

"I'll get the hang of it," Jess assured her pets confidently as Blanche was thrown into the wall to her left, and Tigger into Blanche who was on his left. The seatbelts sure weren't doing much.

"You'd think they'd have a transmat," Blanche groaned as she was released from being pinned between Tigger and the wall.

"Maybe they will one day," Jess replied. "Why is it making so much noise?"

Both her pets thought they'd be astounded if they made it to the Space Station in one piece.

* * *

Blanche and Tigger felt reasonably ill by the time they finally stumbled off the dratted shuttle. Jess herself seemed quite unaffected.

"Well," she said brightly. "Someone's been around here, haven't they?"

"What do you mean?" Tigger asked, confused, irritated and sick.

Jess gestured at the mess around them. As well as being in complete disarray, the Station was also completely deserted. "I mean," she explained, "that someone _was_ here to make the mess, but obviously isn't here now."

"Oh," Tigger replied.

Unseen by the three, they were being watched. It wasn't that the watchers were being particularly secretive about their watching: they were just not being seen. The watchers couldn't stand for this.

"Halt!" one yelled at the three. There were six watchers, and they were all blue-wearing Yellow Gelerts. Security guards.

Jess turned and looked at them. "Well, you don't you have a job to do!" she told them brightly.

"All right, miss," the same guard said. "This is a restricted area. What are you doing here?"

"Restricted area?" Jess asked. "Why? By who?"

"We received orders that the Space Station was under quarantine. No one's allowed in, and no one's allowed out."

"So that's his excuse," Jess mused. "Well, what are you going to do?"

"Do?" the guard looked at his fellow guards, bewildered.

"Surely you're going to do more than stand there and look dumb."

"Oh." The bewildered guard tried to look authoritative. "I'm afraid all three of you will have to come with me for questioning."

"By who?" Jess inquired.

"Umm..." Jess heard the guard ask a fellow guard who would be questioning them. "Us."

"You could just question us in the café over a nice cup of tea," Jess pointed out. "Or rather, a disgustingly chemical-tasting cup of tea."

The guard was uncertain. "You're not very threatening."

"Am I supposed to be?" Jess asked. "I can be. Threatening, you know. But it gets rather boring after a while."

The guard grinned sheepishly. "I hope you realise you can't go back to Neopia."

"Yes, I am aware of that," Jess replied. "How about, I come up with questions and question myself? You're pathetic." She coughed and the guard didn't realise she'd insulted him. "All right. Name, Jessica Smith. And those are Blanche and Tigger, my pets. User name, opalgirl26. Horrendously stupid, I know, but I was nine. I think." She paused in thought. "No, I was ten. That was _November_ 2002..."

The guards watched the babbling girl speak, until they realised they should be jotting it down. One guard retrieved a notepad and a pen and started to write 'Name: Jessica Smith; User name: opalgirl26; Pets Accompanying: bubbles2003neo, tigger2002guy;'...

Jess peered over his notepad. "You forgot. Joined date, 17 November 2002... no, 16 November, actually... uhh, let's see. What else? I was published in the Neopian Times nine times but was given credit for ten. I beat Cheat! and I have a runners-up medal in Invasion of Meridell and, uh, maybe Snow Throw... oh no, I forgot the name of it. It's not Snow Throw, is it?"

"It's Snow Wars, mum," Tigger put in helpfully.

"Ah. Thank you, Tigger. And I also got a bronze for NeoQuest II, and I participated in the Battle for Meridell and that Hannah-Thieves war. I supported Maraqua in that skirmish – Zoe said I should have fought – but you don't know who Zoe is, do you? Zoe's a NeoFriend of mine, her user name's diamondzoe4, you know..."

The guard was now deeply confused, unsure of the fields he should be writing, let alone the variables. He wondered if this was a deliberate tactic on the part of the twelve-year-old.

"Can you speak coherently, please?" he enquired. Jess shrugged.

"Is that really one of your questions?" she asked in disbelief. "Well the answer is yes, I can. Do you have any more questions?"

"Uhhh..." the guard paused in thought. "We think you should join the other Neopians who are stuck up here in quarantine."

"That's not a question," Jess pointed out, "but all right, all right. Where _is_ that, exactly?"

"Not far away," a different guard, for once – the tallest of the bunch – assured her.

"Good, good," Jess agreed, then letting herself and her pets be escorted away.


	8. A Very Dull Gang

"You're all very dull, aren't you?" Jess asked accusingly at the gang – mostly Elephantes, strangely – who she was stuck with in an annoyingly small room. This small room the nine – five of which were Elephantes – were enclosed in had nine bright orange, squishy, furry chairs and a strange exotic pot plant in the corner. There was a door next to the pot plant, and the room had rather the look of a doctor's waiting room – or it would, if it weren't for the fact that there weren't any other doors, or a receptionist's desk, or a TV for waiting patients to watch, or even a window.

"No," disagreed the only pet there who wasn't an Elephante, excluding Jess's own, who appeared to be a comparatively civilised Tyrannian Kougra, "you just ramble on too inanely for us to keep up with."

"I _do not_ ramble on inanely," Jess protested defensively. "That's only if you ask my sister Emma, or Zoe, or my mum, or... well, quite a lot of people, actually, but _they're all wrong._"

"I don't think that helped you any, mum," Tigger told Jess quietly. Jess ignored him.

"Say, is there any food around here?" she asked suddenly. "I'm starving."

Two of the five Elephantes both turned their heads away, apparently in disgust.

"It was a polite enough question!" Jess yelled angrily. "It's not like there's a fridge, or a cupboard, or even a _lolly jar_." She sighed impatiently. "And why do they have to enclose us in such a small room? If the whole Station's under quarantine, surely we're allowed around the whole station."

Another Elephante turned his head away.

"This is so dreadfully _boring_," Jess complained, ignoring the fact that most of the others were ignoring her – or at least three of them. "You'd think they'd have some more entertainment for poor people stranded here." Jess suddenly jumped out of her chair. "I'm a genius!"

"How?" the Tyrannian Kougra asked before he could stop himself.

"Well," Jess explained, "what's keeping me here, anyway?"

"Security guards," was Tigger's grouchy response.

Jess clucked her tongue. "Now you sound like Saint," she reprimanded him. "You remember how dumb they are – fancy 'can you please speak coherently?' being on their checklist of questions!" Grinning, she strolled casually to the door and opened it. "Now before you -" Jess paused to actually look at the area surrounding the doorway. "Oh," she remarked, puzzled. "There's no one here."

She turned to look at the eight pets – five Elephantes, two Kougras and a Uni – who remained seated. "Coming?" she enquired.

Tigger continued his Saint impression. "No."

"Blanche? Will you?"

"I'm not sure it's quite wise," Blanche protested.

"Who cares if it's wise?" was Jess's award-winning argument. "It's not boring."

Blanche made an exaggerated sigh. "_Someone's_ got to look after you, haven't they?" she asked, heaving herself out of her orange, fluffy chair. "I guess I'll see you soon, Tigger," she told her brother.

"Fine," Tigger grumbled, and so his owner and sister closed the door behind them and scampered away.

* * *

"This is very weird," Jess commented after wandering through several abandoned, although also in complete disarray, corridors. "Even our dumb guard friends have left us."

"Mmm," Blanche agreed vaguely, staring interestedly at pieces of sandwich lying at her feet. "Isn't it rather ridiculous to tear sandwiches, mum?"

Jess gained an indignant expression all of a sudden. "It makes them easier to bite into if you're trying to avoid crust," was her award-winning protest.

"But don't crusts give you -"

"_No,_" Jess replied simply. "And even if they did, _I don't want _curly hair."

Blanche shrugged. "Where are we headed, anyway?" she enquired coolly, stepping over the sandwich with as much dignity as she could muster. "We've nearly gone in a full circle."

"So much for your sense of direction."

"_You_ were leading," Blanche pointed out. "And where are we headed?"

"Where we were headed earlier," Jess explained unhelpfully. "Lift... lift..."

"I forgot what that was," Blanche protested. "I was suffering from space sickness, I believe."

"Amnesia isn't a side-effect of space sickness," Jess replied, scanning the walls beside each door for a tell-tale pair of arrow buttons.

"Enlighten me," Blanche instructed with controlled fury. "Where are we going?"

Jess beamed at a large yellow sign that read 'LIFT & STAIRS AT RIGHT'. "Sorry, what was that, Blanche?"

Blanche had a feeling Jess didn't really want to listen, as Jess was now strolling quickly along the corridor without her. That wasn't going to dissuade her, though. "I said, where are we going?"

"How many times have you asked that question in the last minute?" Jess asked, ignoring the actual question. Blanche decided Jess was just in a babbling sort of mood. "Four, isn't it?"

"Well, you won't answer!" Blanche explained angrily. "How am I meant to know the answer if you won't tell me?"

Jess, unseen by Blanche since she was actually looking for a lift, grinned. "I did," she replied. "Amnesia, wasn't it?"

"_Space sickness,_" came the withering reply.

Jess couldn't resist a half-smile as she came up suddenly to a lift. "Hop in, Blanche," she invited her youngest pet as the doors opened. Blanche cast a suspicious glare at the human.

"I don't like the look of this," she muttered.

"You shouldn't worry so much," Jess reproved, stepping into the lift herself. "What can a lift possibly do? It's not alive."

"Neither are robots, mum," Blanche retorted.

"Well, no," Jess admitted, "but now you're just displaying a highly unusual phobia of lifts. _Get in._"

Still glaring at her owner, Blanche stepped into the lift and the large metal doors closed behind her. She carefully watched Jess's hands as they flicked indecisively over the panel of buttons before settling on a particular one - -12.

"Twelfth floor before zero?" Blanche asked sceptically as the lift started to move. "What's there?"

"How am I supposed to know?" Jess asked. "It's just a suspicion of mine."

"You and your suspicions," Blanche groaned.

Jess smiled smugly at her Uni.


	9. The Plan Continues

In not much time at all, the lift slowed and eventually halted at floor -12 – the very last one. The door opened.

"It's quite chilly," Blanche remarked.

"You're telling me. Neopia Central's far more seasonal than Melbourne, anyway, and there's a brilliant quote for it."

"For what?"

"Melbourne, silly. 'If you don't like the weather in Melbourne, wait five minutes.'" Jess paused to think about that quote. "Most of the time, though, five minutes won't do it. Three months is far more effective. Unless, of course, you happen to have a time machine, which I don't."

There she was with the babbling again. "What are we looking for down here?" Blanche shivered.

Jess surveyed the dark room. "It was just a theory," she muttered. "But all the storage here appears to be the size of shoes. Or at least, they fit into shoebox-sized boxes."

"Logically," Blanche agreed. "Unless, of course..."

"Unless? Of course?"

"Suppose Sloth not only has androids and satellites, but access to suspended animation equipment and a... a shrinking device?"

Jess thought. "Logical," she decided. "But most of that stuff is unknown to Neopia. Where could he have learnt it?" She suddenly paused. "I wonder..."

"Wonder?"

"Diana Wattle. Maybe she served a purpose to Sloth. You know, apart from the usual annoying-reporter-gets-thrown-out-of-airlock thing."

"They don't have shrinking devices on Earth," Blanche pointed out, "and cryogenic suspension is still in its infancy. Humans still don't know what happens when you come out of it."

"_Blanche!_" Jess complained. "It's not like Neopia's done any better."

"True," Blanche admitted. "But I'll tell you what we _are_ ahead of you of. Time travel."

"That's no use," Jess complained.

"Yes it is," Blanche argued. "He could travel to a time where shrinking devices exist, or are even commonplace."

"Oh. Right. Well, I..." Jess struggled to think of a suitable statement to wipe Blanche's smug smile off her face. "Well, I knew that. I was just testing you." It didn't work. Well, of course, she couldn't have expected it to. Not with such a rubbishy argument as 'I was just testing you'.

Turning away from Blanche's smug face, she approached the wall of boxes and pulled one off at random. It felt as cold as ice. She slowly prised away the lid and, lying dormant inside, was a perfectly miniaturised Baby Poogle. She wondered how its family must have felt on being attacked by such a sweet – if bigger than toddler shoe-sized – Baby Poogle.

She returned the box to its position in the wall, moving to her left a few steps. She pulled a box from as high as she could reach – for the wall itself stretched several dozen metres above her head – and prised away its lid. Inside this box there was a miniaturised Halloween Lupe who barely seemed to fit into the box. His face had an unmistakeable grimace on it.

She searched for another box. This one was barely visible, made of ice itself, but Jess eventually determined its status as an Ice Bori. The next box held a clump of snow that had probably once been a pet, but had fallen a part. Why put a clump of snow in suspended animation?

She'd been through a dozen or so boxes before she heard Blanche stroll up to her.

"It's terrible," Jess declared. "Terrible." She showed Blanche the contents of the latest icy box pulled off the shelves. Inside it there was a small human girl, dressed in pink and with pink bow ties in her hair. "She can't be older than seven." She found it even harder to comprehend that this girl – or rather, this girl's body – would go on a murderous killing spree. Sloth was truly, truly sick in the mind. "How many are there?" she asked quietly, placing the resealed box back on the shelf.

"Millions, I'd gather," Blanche replied, her voice betraying little of the emotion that Jess was feeling.

"But," Jess continued, "how many like that?"

"What, young? Cute?"

Jess bit her lip until Blanche finally went through enough wrong suggestions to trigger her. "Human. How many... how many humans?"

Any slightest trace of pity Blanche might have displayed was swallowed up by fury. "Humans."

"No," she added hastily. "Not _just_ humans -"

"Humans. You... racist..."

"In answer to your query," a new, unseen male voice interjected, "there are six hundred and seventeen thousand, eight hundred and ninety-three humans here."

Jess looked around at the cold, huge room, which appeared no different. "Where are you?"

"Where am I _not?_" the voice replied laughingly. "You've heard my voice before, my dear."

"Oh, I should have guessed," Jess replied angrily. "All this... only _you_ would have the sadism required!"

"Sadism?" the bemused tone asked.

"Now, listen you," Jess replied bitterly, "anyone who can kidnap pink-wearing seven-year-olds to replace with murderous androids without fear of guilt isn't anything less. _And don't chortle when I'm reprimanding you_."

The disembodied voice, which Blanche correctly guessed to be Doctor Sloth, started to actually laugh.

"Why is it that nobody takes me seriously?" Jess grumbled. "So what are you going to do, All-Mighty Disembodied Voice That Is Too Cowardly To Show Up In Person?"

"Look around you, Miss Smith."

Jess did. Icy boxes. Wow. Then she realised what was in them.

"You can't!" Jess shrieked. "Your plan's already completed. Finished. Successful."

"You don't even know what the plan is," Sloth told her. "Did you really think I'd stop after one miserable planet?"

"Ah," Jess replied. "I'm afraid I did. _But don't start chortling again._" The voice ignored her and chortled anyway.

"Typical," Jess muttered. "What do you intend to do, eh? Take over... oh, what was the name again? It began with a D..."

"Detrum?" Blanche suggested helpfully.

"Yes, that was it," Jess nodded. "Neopia's nearest interplanetary neighbour."

"In fact," Blanche added, "it shares the same orbit as Neopia but in the other side. Rather like a twin planet."

"Exactly," Jess beamed.

"And it has fourteen -"

"Yes, that's enough, now," Jess shushed her. "So, Sloth, is that your plan?"

"That's _Doctor _Sloth to you," Sloth said sneeringly. "I don't have to reveal my plan to mere, primitive humans, either."

"_Primitive humans?_" Jess stopped furiously. "You're either very stupid or very powerful. Or rather, you _are_ very stupid and you're_ possibly_ very powerful."

"_Hold your tongue!_"

"Can't be bothered," Jess argued. "So, hm? How are we to assist in your evil plan? Suspended in a hollow ice cube like those guys?"

"No one ever thinks my plans are original," Sloth replied. "You're completely right, Miss Smith. My guards'll be there to meet you in a minute."

Jess breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh, good. Those guards were quite pleasant. And quite dim-witted, too."

"I'm not sure those are the guards Sloth means," Blanche objected.

"Don't be silly. What other guards are there?"

Blanche didn't get a chance to answer, however, as both girls were hit by stun beams from unseen directions.


	10. The Human

Jess awakened the discover herself sitting upright, if lolling around a little. Her hands were tied somewhat half-heartedly and loosely behind her back, and she was in a dark, circular chamber. Blanche was nowhere in sight, but she could tell where Blanche was from the noise...

There it was. The dentist's chair. Moved from its original spot somewhere between Neopia Central and Meridell, moved to here. The Space Station.

But now the ugly green thing was accompanied by a large metal machine and a metallic dome that was currently fitting snugly over a Faerie Uni's head as her body writhed.

Jess was sickened. She glared at a cloaked figure's back – the cloaked figure who was switching switches, pulling levers and pressing shiny buttons of various colours. She continued her scathing glare as the did a bit of writhing herself to free herself from the ropes. The cloaked figure didn't notice, too enthralled by the spectacle in front of his eyes...

_That he was causing_...

Unseen by anyone, Jess inched her way off the chair and silently kicked the cloaked figure aside as hard as she could manage. It wasn't a very strong kick, but it would have served her purpose if she'd known how the machine worked.

So she guessed.

And it wasn't right. Blanche's screaming intensified as Jess hastily pushed the lever back to where it had been before. She then pushed it in the opposite direction, guessing that if down made the pain worse, up would make it better.

That wasn't right, either. Jess wondered if the lever worked rather like numbers, in which there was a mirror set on the other side of zero. She was glad no one was forcing her to explain her analogies – they'd be doubly sure of her insanity, even though she wasn't. Insane, I mean.

Before Jess was able to test an inviting red button, her left arm was clasped behind her back, presumably by the cloaked figure. _Bother._ She was so extremely left-handed that her right arm would be useless in situations like these.

"Let – go!" Jess shrieked wildly, stomping like the most primitive of her species she was capable of imagining – a caveman. While that wasn't strictly true, it did have to be capable of her imagination.

The cloaked figure ignored her and pulled a knife from his hip. Jess pursed her lips as the knife fixed itself in front of her nose.

"You're a bit off," Jess said stupidly. "And besides, you can't kill me anyway. Sloth... would be displeased."

"The great and noble Doctor does not care for primitives," came the harsh reply.

"Why is everyone here a male?" Jess asked witheringly, not particularly caring for the answer as she was being tied into her chair again. "They're certainly not more efficient," she continued, "and not more courageous. Both my male pets dropped out in cowardice. Maybe Sloth just likes idiots easy to manoeuvre. Easy to manipulate." She wasn't quite sure what she was ranting about now. Maybe she was just letting off steam about anything that had annoyed her by any male in her nearly-thirteen years of life. Like that imbecile, Peter whatever-his-name-was, who had decided that Jess couldn't throw even after she'd hit him square in the nose with a beanbag.

Jess couldn't repress a giggle. He'd gotten so much punishment for punching _her_ in the nose in return that it was unbelievable.

It was about then Jess realised that the cloaked figure was now screaming at her about holding her tongue, and that he had taken her giggle as defiance. Geesh. She was rather stuffed then; that man held the key to... well, to something Jess had quite forgotten the word for right now. It was far more terrifying than she cared to think of a description for.

Jess coughed nervously and looked away from roughly where the cloaked man's – or pet's – head would have been if it were visible. The cloaked figure had an air of smugness around him as he, in turn, turned away from her and back to the control panel. Then the screaming started again. Guilt kicked in. She had to do something... something... something...

She couldn't do something. Nor anything, nor everything, nor nothing. She was stuck. What _did_ she have?

There was one thing. And, funnily enough, it was what Jess did best.

Babble.

"So," Jess said loudly over the shrill screams. "Since I'm stuffed anyway, do you mind if I tidy my thoughts a little? Aloud?" There was not a reply. "I'll take that as a yes," she decided. "So, let's see. I know that we're here because Sloth can make android duplicates of us, correct?" She didn't wait for an answer. "Now, I also know that after this despicable process, I'll be shrunk and placed in suspended animation. That's also true, isn't it? So logically, it follows that as long as I don't rot away first, I'll wake up one day. Isn't that very likely, Mr. Floating Cloak?" Good nickname, Jess decided. She'd use it a bit more. "So, Mr. Floating Cloak, I _also_ happen to know that Neopia is far ahead of my own planet in terms of time travel. Can you imagine what new developments they could have made in five thousand years? Hm, Mr. Floating Cloak? I could come back here and stop it all from ever happening." She grinned as her Mr. Floating Cloak obstinately continued exercising his sadism on Blanche. "Of course, that would set off a time paradox... and there would be two mes running around. Or," she added thoughtfully, "one me would disappear. Very interesting. Don't you think, Mr. Floating Cloak?"

The cloaked figure sighed impatiently. Flicking a switch, the dome lifted off Blanche's head. The Faerie Uni was struggling for breath and thrashing her head wildly.

Jess immediately regretted what she had said.

"Don't... hurt her," Jess ordered, quite forgetting that she was in no position to do so. "What I said... it had nothing to do..."

Jess looked in horror as the cloak stretched a hand – a human hand, nonetheless! - towards what looked suspiciously like a wooden bat.

Jess closed her eyes and cringed, but the horrible yelps were bad enough. She bit her lip until she felt her teeth go through it. She deserved it.

No, she thought, changing her mind. No one did. No one. Not even that stupid Peter whatever-his-name-was who punched her in the nose. How trivial that seemed now.

Jess took a heavy breath as the yelps continued nastily. She refused to open her eyes. She would refuse... she wouldn't open them. Never. Or at least not until this horrible business stopped. Mr. Floating Cloak was an incredibly cruel man.

As, she thought, he _was_ a man. For some reason, that enraged her all the more. It was probably quite racist of her, but it was so dreadfully _easy_ to blame aliens you only heard of three years ago for things, rather than your own kind. Someone from your own planet. It was very difficult to imagine them attacking defenceless aliens.

If Jess wasn't restrained by much tighter knots, she didn't think she'd need a bat. She'd attack that man with her fingernails.

"_What do you think you are doing?_"

Jess opened her eyes in spite of her own agreement to herself to look for where the voice had come from. She didn't see anything pertaining to that, but her eyes unfortunately fell on a bruised and battered Blanche who was sobbing with pain as Mr. Floating Cloak gave her a reprieve – probably because of the voice.

"The human was being difficult, sir," the man – or, as Jess soon realised, the boy – stumbled vaguely. _He was only a few years older than her!_

"What do you mean, 'the human'?" Jess shrieked hysterically, yet again forgetting her plan of keeping them closed. "You're human! Not only are you human, you're sick!"

That didn't count to Sloth very much. "You are delaying progress, Mr. Forrester. When the girl is processed, you may continue." Jess got the impression that he switched the microphone off after that.

This Mr. Forrester – only in year 9 or 10, Jess realised – obeyed Sloth and untied Jess's hands. He was amazingly, incredibly strong and held them firmly behind her back over the short five-metre trip to the dentist's chair. Jess wasn't sure whether to be furious or depressed, and oddly settled to a combination of both.

"You think this is all a game," Jess sobbed bitterly. "You haven't made the jump yet, have you?"

"I'm only obeying orders, little missy," Forrester told her coldly.

"You don't understand," Jess hissed. "I'm real. This is real. What you're doing... it's happening. I can feel it."

"I don't think an android of you is much use," the teenager declared. "You're insane."

Jess sighed. "Can't you hear that?" she asked. "Listen. Can't you hear crying? _You_ inflicted that. It's all _your_ fault."

"You cannot harm a virtual reality," Forrester declared in his usual cold tone. Jess saw no more as the dome was placed over her head, like so many before her.

"This is _not_ a bloody virtual reality!" Jess yelled. "You think you're sitting in front of your computer at home, don't you? Doing something 'cool' and evil?"

"Oh, but I am," Forrester assured the anxious though furious girl confidently. "Now, if you'll be quiet for a moment."

"Why should -" Jess reluctantly obeyed as the massive pain being inflicted on her gave her no choice.

This was the worst Saturday she'd ever suffered.


	11. Rendal, 6081

Jess's eyes fluttered open. She was lying on what appeared to be a table made of foam, but it was surprisingly comfortable. Looking above her head, she saw three concerned faces: two male and a female's.

"Are you all right?" the female asked worriedly.

Jess nodded. "Who are you?" she asked vaguely. "What... what happened?"

"I'm Talia," the female explained kindly. "These are my friends, Anton and Yonan." She gestured at the two men in turn.

"Where am I?" Jess asked vaguely.

"You're quite all right," Talia reassured her confidently. "We're long past the dark ages."

"Dark ages?"

"Mm," Talia nodded. "The time before year 8."

"Oh," Jess replied. "Wasn't it more like 1200AD?"

"AD is an out-of-date term," Talia told Jess, still all smiles.

"Then what do you do if you want to refer to a time before year 1?" Jess asked, puzzled.

"There is no recorded history before that time," Talia said. "We have no use for years before 1."

"Really?" Jess asked. "I can think of loads of things that happened before year 1. The pyramids of Egypt, the Greek, Roman and Egyptian civilisations..."

It was Talia's turn to be puzzled. "Egypt? Greek? Roman?"

Jess thought of something. "I am on Earth, aren't I? Aren't I?"

Talia was puzzled. "We are descended from the Earth people of six thousand years ago," Talia replied, "but we are on Rendal. Three light years away from Neopia."

That rang a bell, at least. "Neopia..." she muttered. "I think... I think... I've heard of Neopia," she finished lamely. "Something... there... something horrible..."

"You are from the Dark Ages," Anton told her. "Undoubtedly you have suffered many horrors."

"But... I don't remember..." Jess waved a hand around irritably and decided it was about time to jump out of her foam bed. "What year is it?"

"It's year sixty eighty-one," Anton replied sceptically.

Jess grinned awkwardly. "I'm from year seven." She stared down at her clothes. Instead of the white suspension garb she expected to see, she was still wearing the jeans and singlet top she had been before all this...

How did she remember what she wore.

"Is... is amnesia a side-effect of either suspension or reanimation?" Jess asked curiously. Her three hosts shook their heads.

"Did you suffer any trauma?" Yonan asked curiously. "I'm a psychologist."

"I think," Jess answered. "Is amnesia a side-effect of trauma?"

"It can be," Yonan replied. He started to inspect her eyes. "What do you remember?"

Jess shrugged. "I remember Earth very well," Jess stated. "I went to school yesterday. I have stacks of homework..." she stared wide-eyed at Talia. "It's never going to get handed in, is it? I'll have been a missing person the last six thousand and seventy-four years, won't I?"

"You need sleep," Yonan decided.

"Sleep?" Jess demanded. "Why would I need sleep? I've been sleeping the last six thousand and seventy-four years. I'd much rather explore, if you don't mind."

"I don't," Talia replied. "Just go and see one of the nice security guards about gaining identification."

Jess grinned. "Thanks." She shuffled sheepishly out of the room to look for a suitable guard.

"Trauma?" Talia asked Yonan. "Did she really erase her own memories?"

Yonan nodded. "Something horrible probably happened."

"Will she regain them?"

"Time will tell," Yonan answered. Talia was unimpressed. "Probably," he clarified.

"Poor thing," Talia sympathised. "I don't blame her for trauma, but extreme enough to trigger erasure of memory about Neopia...?"

Yonan nodded. "There were bound to be some," he told her.

Talia nodded. "Yes, I know," she replied. "It still gives me the creeps. I'm glad the Doctor stopped it when he did."

"We all are, my dear. We all are."

* * *

Jess didn't particularly care for the architect of the sterile white building. He had absolutely no creativity. Also, while ostensibly on a planet, there were no windows to back up that theory.

There appeared to be many humans in this building, and eventually Jess got so bored of wandering around that she halted a passing Asian girl who didn't look very busy.

"Hi," Jess said, smiling, "I'm Jess Smith. Who are you?"

The Asian girl smiled back. "Christine Li."

"What a coincidence. I had a friend once, whose last name was Li."

"The Li family name has been in my family more than six thousand years," Christine declared proudly.

"Impressive," Jess grinned. "How old are you?"

"86325 Rendalian years," Christine boasted. Seeing Jess's alarm, she added, "we have quite a small sun, and we orbit very close. This close, we're very vulnerable to solar flares and this base protects us. Did you just transfer from another posting?"

"Something like that," Jess smiled. "Where do you get food around here? I'm starving."

"The canteen, doofus," Christine admonished her new-found friend. "Where'd you think?"

"I don't know," Jess laughed. "I thought maybe food in the sixty-..." Jess realised her mistake and coughed. "This will sound rather foolish, but I thought that maybe food on very hot planets was a bit different."

"Well, where've you been?" Christine continued. "Don't you know anything about the Neopian Empire?"

"I've been diagnosed with amnesia," Jess stated pleasantly.

"Oh," Christine replied uncertainly. "Maybe you should see the medical officer...?"

"I've seen a man called Yonan. Does he count?"

"Of course not. He's too busy excavating the Lost Tombs of Rendal. That's why they built this place, you know. Someone tried to send them into the sun, but somehow they got buried here instead, several thousands of years ago."

"By who?"

"No one knows, you dumbell."

"Oh," Jess replied. "And don't call me a dumbell, you... Li."

"The name has been in my family for..."

"Six thousand years, yes. And you act exactly like your several-hundred-times great grandmother, too."

"Who's that?"

"Nice girl. Fond of insulting people, actually."

Christine laughed. "So she's nice... and she insults people all the time?"

"I think," Jess asked. "I'm only just remembering."

"How would you know this Zoe Li, anyway?" Christine demanded. "Do you have a time machine?"

"Neopia's far more advanced in time travel than my planet is," Jess argued.

"Doubt it," Christine snorted. "We lost the secrets of time travel in the fifth century."

"_In the fifth century?_" Jess demanded. "This place just gets weirder and weirder."

"It's always weird," Christine answered playfully. "That's exactly why it's fun."

"If you say so," Jess laughed. "Say, what's the time?"

"Five minutes past the eighteenth hour," Christine answered dutifully. "It's dinner time."

Jess nodded. "I don't know where the canteen is," she pointed out apologetically.

"Oh, right." Christine grinned sheepishly and took her several-hundred-times-great grandmother's excellent friend by the arm. "Come with me." The two girls, about the same age, too, strolled off.


	12. An Ancient History Lesson

Jess had been allocated an average sort of bedroom, with a bed and a bedside table, chairs and another table. Lamps were unnecessary, and the lights were operated mostly by a little turning knob rather than a switch.

The sleeping girl was nestled comfortably in the smallish sort of bed. Or she was, until she suddenly propelled herself upwards, eyes wide open.

"The Doctor..." she muttered vaguely. She got up out of the bed and felt her way along the dark room before locating the knob that controlled the lights, then turning it. She then sat back on the bed, scratching her head in frustration.

"That man..." she continued to mutter. "That vile, despicable..." She paused and stared at her reflection in a mirror on the wall. She stood up and poked it experimentally. "Well, of course nothing would happen," she assured herself, resting herself on the bed again. "He's... he can't..." she frowned. "Who's _he?_ Well, the Doctor, of course. But who's he? Who's the Doctor?"

She stood up, prowling the room and frowning. "Doctor what? Doctor _what?_ I know this. I know I know this. So I know I know something I know I've quite forgotten at the present moment." She deepened her frown. "Logically, I suppose that makes sense. But it's rather difficult to say..." She held the fist at the end of her left arm with her right hand. "Doctor _who?_" she asked herself, irritated.

* * *

Jess sat sullenly in what appeared to be a doctor's clinic made of the same bland white metal as the rest of the building. Yes, Christine _was_ a lot like her several-hundred-times great grandmother. When Jess had asked her who the Doctor might be, Christine decided to take Jess to the medical ward.

If Jess hadn't been keen to do research, she would had laughed at the pure irony Zoe wouldn't have understood. Since she was, though, she had decided to be sullen instead.

For the past hour.

For a doctor with no other patients, he sure was rather busy.

Finally, Jess was allowed to see the incredibly lazy doctor – human, like everyone else in the place.

"What's your name?" the doctor asked.

"Jess Smith," Jess replied grumpily. "Can I go now?"

"No no, Miss Smith, your friend made you come here for a reason."

_Yes, but it wasn't like I agreed or anything_, Jess felt like pointing out, but didn't. Logically, the less complaining she got done the faster the doctor could finish and the faster she could do her research.

"So, you remember someone but don't remember exactly what you remember?"

Jess blinked. "I guess," she replied uncertainly. This doctor had a gift for babble second only to her.

"And your mind thinks of him as a Doctor?"

"An idiot Doctor," Jess corrected. "Absolute imbecile."

"Uh, and your friend thinks I can help somehow?"

Oh brilliant, an entire hour wasted thanks to a Li. _Again._

"Well, I think I can!" the doctor beamed. He found a small bottle and gave it to Jess. "This is a memory-inducing drug. It's like the cure for amnesia. Have some."

Jess stared at him. "What, here?"

"Why not?"

"No reason." Jess smiled and took a swig of the small bottle. The drug was surprisingly tasty – in fact, it tasted rather like tea. How Jess missed tea. She handed it back gratefully and paused. "Should it have worked by now?"

"Any moment no-"

Jess screamed and fainted.

* * *

"Jess? Jess? Are you all right?"

Jess opened her eyes to find Christine kneeling next to her.

"What did you remember?" a worried, tearful Christine asked. "What made you collapse like that?"

Jess shook her head. "Horrible," she brushed the question off.

"_Tell me_," Christine insisted.

Jess ignored her. "First, I want you to tell me everything you know about Doctor Frank Sloth."

"Didn't you remember everything? That drug was supposed to induce _total_ recall."

"Just... just do it," Jess smiled and Christine agreed.

"This is ancient history," Christine told her. "The time before year 8 is known as the Dark Age. One of the ancient rulers of Neopia had tricked the populace, and over a period of time replaced Neopets – ancient creatures that died out completely in the fifteenth century – and their owners – humans – with androids. The androids ran amok. Nearly everyone was killed, and the gateway to Earth was sealed."

Jess nodded. "Go on."

"A wonderful scientist appeared out of nowhere. He was Doctor Sloth. He gave the few humans who survived weapons needed to fight the androids. They won." Christine grinned proudly. "Zoe Li was a prolific fighter," she declared.

Jess grinned. "That sounds just like Zoe," she mused. "Go on."

Christine nodded. "There were very, very few citizens in Neopia at that time," she continued. "Less than three hundred over the whole planet. Naturally, they rallied around the Doctor, who confessed that he was embroiled in a battle to wipe similar androids off Detrum, Rostoca, and several nearby planets. We Neopians – we helped him defeat the robots. In return, Sloth gave us technology beyond our wildest dreams. Videos. CD players. IPods."

Jess smiled as she remembered how primitive technology had been back in her time. "Is that it?" she asked.

"Of course not," Christine replied. "He valiantly defended our universe against these android creeps. They appeared _everywhere_, massacring entire planets and the like."

"Until the end of his life?" Jess prodded.

"I imagine so," Christine stated. "Until the end of time."

"Time?" Jess asked. "What do you mean, time?"

"Sloth gave us the gift of immortality in the seventeenth century," Christine breathed happily. "I am a hundred and fifty-three years old."

"You mean... you can't be killed? You're indestructible?"

"That is what indestructible means," Christine replied, puzzled. "Now you're just moving on to unrelated questions. Tell me what you remember. What was horrible?"

"Nothing," Jess lied. "I overreacted. I... I remembered the time my sister stabbed my calf."

"Your sister stabbed your calf?"

Jess nodded. "Look. I'll show you." She rolled up her left jean leg and pointed out the dark patch on the back of her calf. "I was five at the time."

"Your sister's really mean," Christine decided. "No wonder you were fooled... imagine the blood!"

In truth, Jess barely remembered the incident – though it had happened. She remembered that much. Though at least it was a reasonable excuse.

Then Jess looked around. "Where'd Dr. What's-his-name go?" she asked.

"Kratasky," Christine replied. "And he went to lunch. As should we."

Jess smiled. "Excellent. I'm starving."

"Excellent," Christine grinned. "They're serving fish today. It's a food they even had in ancient times."

Jess smiled. "I know." She allowed Christine to drag her to her feet and lead her to the canteen.

Neither girl noticed the security camera that had documented their entire discussion.


	13. A Brilliant Plan

All alone in a small spaceship randomly exploring his empire – the whole galaxy – a big green scientist angrily glared at the computer monitor, which stubbornly showed him the same face. Jess's.

"This is insane," he fumed. "Preposterous. I threw that girl into a star. _You hear that, computer?_ I am Doctor Frank Sloth. I never forget."

The computer did not reply, but still refused to warp Jess's face to make her someone else. Sloth fumed some more.

"_She is dead! She died four thousand years ago! She cannot be strolling around the base on Rendal! Don't you understand?_"

Of course the computer didn't reply. Why should it have replied?

"I'm taking a visit to the base on Rendal," he declared, setting the co-ordinates. "Done." A large space-time tunnel opened up in front of the evil genius, and his ship was sucked through it.

* * *

"Christine," Jess asked curiously, "what would you do if you were given the opportunity to travel back in time?"

"It would depend on what the time was," Christine replied. The two girls were lazily sitting in the canteen, having finished their lunches and everyone else having abandoned the room. "I think it'd be great fun to fight in the wars of the first century."

Jess blinked. "You are a lot like Zoe."

"Thank you," Christine replied, clearly taking the remark as a compliment. Which it was, in a way.

"Do you have time travel here?" she asked.

"You can't _still_ be shaky with your facts," Christine protested.

"Just tell me, please."

"We lost it in the fifth century," she replied.

"What, forever?"

"Yes, forever. Duh."

Jess stretched her arms outwards. "Are you _sure_ time travel is really gone?" she asked. "Is Sloth -"

"The Doctor," Christine corrected automatically.

"Fine. Has the Doctor been conducting any research into it?"

"He would have given us time travel if he'd discovered it," Christine said confidently.

"Well, I'm not so sure abou-"

At that moment, the conversation was cut off by an interruption over the loudspeaker. "The Doctor has arrived on a surprise visit," he announced. "Everyone to the assembly hall."

"The assembly hall?" Jess groaned. "Where's _that?_"

"I'm not sure the drug worked very well," Christine replied uncertainly. "Follow me. It's not very far."

"All right," Jess sighed.

* * *

"Hello there," Sloth beamed at his audience of respectful humans, approximately six hundred people big. "Are you all well?"

"Yes," chorused the crowd.

"Excellent," Sloth beamed. "I would love to be on a social visit with you wonderful people, but unfortunately I have some rather unpleasant business to attend to."

"Unpleasant?" yelled a man from the crowd.

"Yes," Sloth replied solemnly. "My sensors have detected an intruder amongst your mist. She is a master criminal, and must be caught."

"What did she do?" a woman yelled.

"Back when time travel was still in use," Sloth declared, "she travelled here in an effort to defeat me in my complacency."

"She is evil!" another man declared.

"What does she look like?" yelled a woman.

Suddenly, Jess's photo appeared on the wall behind Sloth. _Bother._

So, now she had two options. One, she could hide. Or two, she could run.

Judging from the way Christine was jumping and waving her arm excitedly, two was a better bet. So Jess did, for the three seconds before her left arm was twisted behind her back by yet another human guard.

"Let go of me!" Jess shrieked. "I didn't – do – anything!"

Sloth strolled through the overexcited crowd.

"What do we do, Doctor?"

"Do we get our spears?"

"Can we have guns?"

"Will we send her into our sun?"

"Now now now," Sloth chided the audience gently, "there'll be none of that. We shall be merciful, won't we?"

"Why should we be merciful?" a woman spat. "The androids weren't merciful to our ancestors!"

"It is the way we live," Sloth said. "We don't attack without reason, do we?"

"No," admitted some members of the crowd grudgingly.

"She could have been good target practice, though," one man added hopefully.

"Please," Jess begged. "I didn't do anything... and this oaf's twisting my arm!"

"Ungrateful child!" another woman spat.

"Shoot her!"

"Asphyxiate her!"

"Burn her!"

The man who suggested 'burn her' was walloped over the head. Fair enough, too.

"Now, now, now," Sloth soothed the crowd. "You've all loaded up on red cordial again, haven't you? We don't kill for no reason, you lot. We become no better than the enemy. Let me deal with her. You know I will manage more than adequately."

The crowd suddenly started cheering. Jess was less cheerful because her arm was still relentlessly held, twisted, behind her back. The human guard then decided to move her, and she was forced to follow Sloth along the boring white corridors to his own ship.

"Why did you save me?" she asked suspiciously of Sloth on the way.

"Save you? I plan to kill you eventually, my dear." Sloth grinned malevolently. "Those apes'd never let you suffer enough first."

So that was his reason. "I didn't think you could change in six thousand years," she told him. "All that protesting about fairness and saving my life... it was all rubbish, wasn't it? You sadist."

Sloth yawned. "I wouldn't be so cheeky if I were you, Miss Smith," he warned. "I could make your death painless... or excruciating. It's up to you."

"I'd rather not die at all, actually," Jess suggested coolly. "I don't suppose that's an option, though, is it."

"Of course not," Sloth smiled. "You're doomed, Miss Smith."

"I know." She sighed impatiently as the group finally turned the corner to the docking bay to see Sloth's ship.

* * *

Jess was well-known with people she knew for being impatient. Even when the thing she was waiting _for_ involved being hurt.

But she had a plan. A really brilliant plan, the kind of brilliant plan you can only think of while trying your hardest to fall asleep, as Jess had been doing.

A brilliant plan that involved stealing Sloth's ray gun.

A brilliant plan that involved shooting at herself.

A brilliant plan that involved changing history.

All right, so maybe it wasn't so brilliant. But it was close enough to brilliant and at any rate, it wasn't like she had anything else to do. And if she did have something to do, she doubted it would be as productive as her brilliant plan.

She had planned all of this hours before Sloth suddenly strolled into the dirty, dark, metallic room, bright red ray gun in hand.

"What are you going to do, then?" Jess asked sullenly, not bothering to get up despite the fact that she wasn't even restrained.

"What do you think I should do?"

"Letting me go'd be a nice gesture," Jess replied in the same sullen tone. She looked up briefly to notice that Sloth wasn't remotely in ray-gun-stealing distance. She decided to bait him into it. "Does it give you a thrill, killing innocents?" she asked bitterly.

"Do you think it does?"

"Obviously it does," Jess replied grouchily. "You wouldn't have gotten your empire any other way. Too cowardly to initiate a direct assault."

"Direct assaults always fail," Sloth hissed. "They are, by definition, weak. They have a fault. They can be defended against."

"Exactly," Jess replied mildly. "Cowardly."

"If I am cowardly, you are just stupid!" Sloth decided angrily. Jess grinned. The brilliant plan was working.

"I might be stupid," Jess replied, "but you're pathetic. A lucky coin doesn't help you take over a planet, you know."

"Even _you_ should remember what happened in the Lost Desert!" Jess waved a hand.

"I probably did at some point," she said dismissively. "Wasn't there a beast made out of rock involved?" She shook her head. "Pathetic."

Sloth took a few furious paces forward. "Foolish child."

"Oh, now you're going to pull out the foolish card," Jess remarked, on a roll. "I should have thought as much. You are _too_ predictable."

"Stand."

Jess glared at the ugly green face. "Why?"

"It's a simple enough order. _Stand!_"

Jess shrugged and obeyed, and Sloth took a few more paces forward.

"You're pushing your luck, you know," Sloth warned.

"I've always been very lucky," Jess smiled. Next thing she knew, a large hand was wrapped tightly around her neck. Jess took that as her cue, and lunged for the gun in Sloth's other hand – hindered by the fact that Sloth's arm was rather blocking off her view of it. She made contact with it, though, and wrenched the metal thing away.

"You can't use it on me," Sloth grinned evilly, not moving his hand from her throat, "that was a very big safety precaution."

"I'm not going to use it on you," she informed him politely. She wrenched herself from Sloth and quickly twisted a knob, then twisted another knob. Lastly, she twisted a third knob and pointed the metal gun at herself. "See your past self, Sloth," she grinned triumphantly. She pulled the trigger and she disappeared with a slow fading motion. The gun clattered to the floor.

Curiously, Sloth retrieved the red metal device from the floor and examined the readings. "Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear," he muttered, smiling all the while. "The Space Station, Swimming, year 7." He grinned wider. "Imbecile." He triumphantly carried the gun away from the grimy room.


	14. Zoe in June

Jess found herself standing and fully conscious, which was remarkable considering that she'd just appeared to have travelled through a wormhole that strangely supported life – or at least her life. She was, however, incredibly dizzy, and the first thing she did on materialising right in the middle of Grundo's Café was to fall over.

"I'm all right," she insisted, causing several seemingly helpful Gelerts to frown in bewilderment.

"You're not under the influence, are you?"

Against all common sense, Jess laughed. "You sound like a police officer," she told the young Red Gelert. "I don't need an appearing-out-of-thin-air license, do I? Well, I don't have one for you to put a strike against, anyway."

The Gelert was even more puzzled. "What's a license?"

"Ask your owner when you find them," Jess smiled, picking herself up off the floor. "I think some tea is in order." Abandoning the Gelert, she strolled towards the counter...

...where she saw herself ordering tea! Jess had quite forgotten that going back in time would risk her crossing her own time line. That would make things difficult. But at least she knew she _didn't_ cross her own time line...

But if she hadn't believed history was changeable, she wouldn't have wasted the effort to steal Sloth's gun. So basically, she had to be wary.

So Jess waited until she saw herself take a sip of the tea, wrinkle her nose in disgust, throw the cup into the café disposal unit and wander away from the café altogether before heading up to the counter.

"A cup of tea, please," she requested politely.

"You just got one," the Mutant Grundo growled. "And a change of clothes."

Jess sighed. "What kind of salesman are you?" she asked. "If I want to buy bonus tea, you're supposed to _let me_. It makes you more money, don't you see?"

The Grundo grunted in reply and produced the chemically space-made tea in a Styrofoam cup. "650 NeoPoints, ma'am."

"That's ridiculous," Jess snapped, rummaging around in her purse for money. "300."

"That's equally ridiculous," the Grundo growled. "Do you want the flaming tea? 550 NeoPoints at the least."

Jess sighed irritably. "400."

"Look, I can't go giving you half-price tea just because you drink a lot of it."

"That's not half price," Jess argued. "That's eight-thirteenths price." The Grundo ignored her. "_Fine_. 450."

"525."

Jess glared at the Grundo. "475." She'd gotten five hundred NeoPoints in coins from her wallet, and wasn't going to take any more or she'd have to do more rummaging.

"510."

"490," Jess argued. She was relieved when the Grundo declared "deal!" and took her 500NP, leaving her 10 and the tea in exchange. Jess took the tea happily and took a sip.

Having not been allowed to have any for two days didn't make it taste any better. Jess threw this cup out, as well.

"Right," she muttered to herself. "Now, where do I start?" She paused in thought. "Mid-June. It's mid-June. What was happening in mid-June?" She ignored the stares of the various Neopians also in the café. "I don't remember. Funny. I'll have to find a newspaper."

* * *

"Nothing. I don't believe it. _Nothing_ happened in mid-June. Well, apart from Kau Day, Nimmo Day, Quiggle Day, the release of the Hissies, the end of the Maraquan war... but that's not much," Jess told herself after buying and reading a copy of the Neopian Times that she'd already read.

"Trust you to think that's not a lot."

Jess turned and stared at the Chinese girl, about her own age, who'd come up to join her.

"Zoe!" Jess grinned. "I didn't know you went to the Space Station on... uhh..." Jess checked the paper. "The eighteenth of June."

"You didn't forget the date _again_, did you?"

"What?"

Zoe coughed. "It's the nineteenth."

"Oh." Jess grinned. "It's been so long since June."

"Not really," Zoe disagreed. "It was June yesterday. Not to mention a second ago. And a nanosecond ago. And now."

"Technically speaking," Jess waved a hand. "What happened in June? Wait, I mean, what _is_ happening?"

Zoe stared at Jess. "You're in a let's-annoy-Zoe mood, aren't you?"

"No," Jess disagreed. "I just thought it was July." Well, it was before she went to the sixty-first century. "Besides, you know how forgetful I am."

"I'll say. It hasn't been July for _eleven months_, Jessie."

"Exactly," Jess beamed. "Has fishing been released?"

"Fishing?" Zoe asked blankly.

"Oh, it hasn't," Jess replied stupidly. "I did tell you I was forgetful."

"No, Jessie," Zoe disagreed. "You're just remembering things that didn't happen. That's the polar opposite."

"But they _did_ happen," Jess protested crossly. "It must have been later in June."

"You're just being stupid now," Zoe rolled her eyes. "You haven't been to later in June."

"Yes I have," Jess bristled indignantly.

"No you haven't."

"Why not?"

"Because you don't have a time machine, dummy."

"Well, of course I don't have a time machine," Jess rolled her eyes. "I used Sloth's ray gun. Did you know that in the sixty-first century it can transport people through time? Wait, I don't suppose you do..."

"_Jessie!_" Zoe yelled crossly.

Jess grinned. "Yes, Zoe?"

"You're babbling again."

"Oh," Jess replied. "Do you want be to be concise?"

"That would help," Zoe growled.

"All right." Jess's face darkened. "One: most of Neopia will be killed in... um, twenty-seven days' time."

"_Sure_, Jessie," Zoe drawled.

"_Just listen!_" Jess took a breath. "Two: right now, there are pets and humans being tortured. Just upstairs."

Zoe just glared at Jess this time.

"Three," Jess stated, "In six thousand years people will think of Sloth as the saviour of mankind. And four, he was the one who killed everyone."

Zoe laughed.

Not the desired effect.

"So you're _admitting_ Sloth's evil now?"

"_Zoe!_" Jess yelled angrily. "You know me, I don't admit being wrong very readily. I certainly wouldn't admit it without a reason."

"You had too much tea," Zoe decided.

"_No_, Zoe," Jess argued, getting increasingly irritated. "Down there, on floor minus 12, there are a million and a half small, icy boxes. Inside all of these boxes – every one – is a perfectly miniaturised, suspended Neopian. The originals."

Zoe was nonplussed.

"I'm there. Or rather, I will be there in a month. Perfectly suspended, to be awoken in 6081 by archaeologists on the planet Rendal. Suffering from trauma and psychological abuse. Suffering from torture."

"Is this supposed to be impressive?"

Jess pursed her lips. "Christine was wrong," she snarled viciously. "You have zero prominent warrior potential. _At all._"

"Who's Christine?"

"Um, your descendant. In 6081."

Zoe rolled her eyes.

"If you don't believe me," Jess snapped, "I'll go fight Sloth on my own. See you."

"See ya," Zoe waved as Jess stormed off, then muttering herself, "_definitely_ had too much tea."


	15. Write an Article!

Jess sighed irritably as she realised she had no brilliant plan. Blanche would have a brilliant plan, but Blanche would be smart enough to remember what Jess wasn't wearing that day.

Oh well.

"Hey, Blanche!" she grinned as she ran up to the Faerie Uni.

"Mum, why are you wearing jeans?"

Jess shrugged the question aside. "What would you do if a certain evil villain named Doctor Frank Sloth decided to kidnap millions of Neopians and create android duplicates of them and use the android duplicates to massacre the entire planet on approximately July 15 at 7:30 in the morning?"

Blanche stared at Jess. "I hope that's hypothetical."

"Well, it won't be at 7:30am July 15, but you can call it hypothetical now if you ignore the fact he's already suspended about a million and a half or two million Neopians."

"That's not hypothetical."

Jess sighed. "Just tell me what you'd do, please."

"Why?"

"Because I need to do it."

Blanche sighed. "Firstly, you need to find these people in suspension."

"Ah. I tried that already."

"And what happened." It wasn't a question, strangely enough.

"Sloth caught me."

Blanche rolled her eyes. "Then what?"

"Hm?"

"Did he punish you?" Blanche asked in a mildly irritated tone.

"Oh, yes," Jess mumbled softly, expressing a sudden desire to stare at her feet.

"What did he do?"

"Pain," Jess mumbled. "Mind-blowing, horrible pain."

"When was this?"

"About..." Jess paused in thought. "July 15, I should think. At nine in the morning or so."

"It's still June, mum."

"Now, don't you start imitating Zoe," Jess warned. "You read that book on time travel. You should know it's theoretically possible."

"But still," Blanche protested.

"Look, doesn't it explain the different clothes?"

Blanche shrugged uneasily. "I suppose."

"Good girl." Jess beamed. "So what was your brilliant plan?"

"Brilliant plan?" Blanche stared blankly at her owner.

"To defeat Sloth," Jess reminded Blanche.

"Oh." Blanche paused in thought. "You should reanimate the people in suspended animation."

"There are millions of them," Jess protested.

Blanche grinned a grin of her own. "I have another brilliant plan," she declared. "Write an article."

"A... what?"

"Write an article. It is what you _do_, isn't it?"

"Not for two years," came the unenthusiastic response. "Besides, _what exactly do I write?_"

"Jessica Louise Smith," Blanche said sternly, "you are going to write that article and get it published."

"But Snowflake never likes my ideas."

"_Mum!_"

"Fine, fine," she agreed reluctantly. "I'll need a pen and a notepad."

"I have them," Blanche retrieved the required items from a small backpack. "Well, what are you waiting for? _Go!_"

Jess sighed. "Aren't you coming with me?"

"Why should I?" Blanche asked, puzzled.

"To prove it's not just a brilliant scheme to kill me," Jess smiled. Blanche rolled her eyes.

"_Fine_," Blanche agreed, equally reluctantly. "To the top floor it is."

* * *

Jess was at least a little smarter than the last journalist who tried to discover Sloth's master plan, and hid in a nearby alcove.

"I can't hear anything," she hissed at her Uni.

"My plan wasn't flawless," Blanche hissed back.

"Why are we here, anyway? I _know_ the plan. I _saw_ what it did."

"To _confirm the facts_," Blanche retorted in a particularly loud hiss. "What kind of reporter are you, anyway?"

"A reporter who hasn't been a reporter for two years."

"Only twenty-two months, actually."

"Twenty-two months is _only_ to you? Now be be quiet." Jess pressed her ear against the wall hopefully, but it remained obstinately silent. Then she had a flash of inspiration. "Blanche, do you have anything you can hit people over the head with and knock them unconscious?"

Blanche was puzzled. "Like a baseball bat."

"Well, like that. But hopefully smaller."

Blanche thought about this request a while. "No."

Jess shrugged. "I'll have to use my arm then," she whispered, walking right up next to the door. Then she bellowed. "Oh, Sloth!"

The door immediately opened, and Jess brought her left arm straight into the back of Sloth's neck. Sloth fell to the floor in shock more than anything else, and Jess and Blanche leapt speedily into the office behind the green scientist. With a swift punch of the control, the door was firmly closed and locked.

"How do you propose we get out?" Blanche asked. Jess shrugged.

"Air vent," she suggested. "Come on, look at all the highly confidential papers lying around. It's time to take notes. _And look at this!_" She grinned triumphantly at a large machine.

"That makes coffee, mum."

"Well, I prefer space coffee to space tea. Now let's get to work." She rubbed her hands with glee at the stacks of paperwork. She took one off the top of a random pile and read out loud. It was a stupid plan about creating solution-less levels of Sewerage Surfer so the streets of Neopia would be flooded with sewerage.

"Great," Jess muttered sarcastically. "Next pile, I think."


	16. The Air Vent

Several hours later, Jess had covered the floor with umpteen piles of paper, in order from "definitely useful" to "useless". Some of the other ranks included "probably useful", "possibly useful", "probably not useful" and "definitely useless but I'll feel sad if the useless pile is bigger than any other pile so I'll put it here instead".

"So, Blanche," Jess said after sorting _every_ paper into a pile, "what do we know?"

"Enough to write a novel," Blanche replied grumpily from the coffee machine. "Are you _sure_ searching Sloth's office is safe?"

"Sure," Jess replied, rummaging through the "probably not useful" pile for proof. Upon finding the right paper, she said, "see, it says right here how safe it is. As a security measure, he made sure that there were no defences that could be activated on the room from outside because the Space Faerie could find it and kill him." She put the piece of paper back on top of the pile triumphantly.

"I'm going to sound like a doom-sayer," Blanche said, "but that only details _mechanical_ defences. There are very, very simple defences one could use."

"Like what?"

"Like blocking off the air vent."

Jess frowned at the perfectly earnest Uni. "Doom-sayer," she said accusingly. "The Space Faerie wouldn't be dumb enough to do that. The same air vent supplies air to the whole level."

Blanche coughed. "Sloth would be dumb enough, though," she pointed out.

"Extreme doom-sayer," Jess chided. "Now, let's see. Time to write an article, is it?"

Blanche coughed again.

"What is it _now?_" Jess asked irritably. "First you order me to write an article, and now you won't even let me write it in peace."

"Maybe we should get home first?" Blanche suggested.

Jess cast a suspicious glare at the air vent. "Maybe after some more coffee," she stated vaguely. "Would you get me a cup, Blanche?"

Blanche scowled and obeyed as Jess started writing.

"How does this sound?" Jess inquired after a few minutes. "July 15, 2005..."

"Neopian dating, mum," Blanche reminded her owner.

"Oh, right," Jess hastily crossed out "July" and "2005" and replaced them with the proper terms. "All right, then. Swimming 15, year 7," she declared loudly. "Over the past year, Doctor Frank Sloth of many-failed-attempts-to-invade-Neopia fame has developed a new plan. A third great plan. A diabolical, horrible plan. An infallible plan."

Blanche raised her eyebrows. "That's it?"

"You have to give me time to write, Blanche," Jess chided. "Brilliant pieces don't come out of thin air."

Blanche handed Jess the coffee. "You can write the rest at home," she instructed roughly. "I'd rather like to get out of here."

"Why would you want to do that?" Jess asked, puzzled.

"Because any moment now Sloth's going to realise that he can cut through the door."

Jess shrugged and continued writing her article. She had no intention of going home: after all, the Jess that was meant to exist in that time would be going home, and she was trying to avoid her. Going to the same house – even if it _was_ her own house – would not be an incredibly smart way of achieving that.

"Mum!" Blanche cried exasperatedly. "You're not supposed to _shrug_ if faced with the prospect of being caught and thrown out of the airlock, or blasted, or..."

"He'd just duplicate us," Jess replied in calmer a tone than would have been reasonable. "Besides which, he can't duplicate us because aussiejewel was the one who -" she broke off awkwardly. "Never mind."

"What happened to aussiejewel?"

"I can't tell you," Jess replied. "It doesn't matter, anyway. If history couldn't be changed, I wouldn't be wasting my time here."

"_What are you changing?_" Blanche's tone was quite irritated. "You never tell me anything."

"I do so," Jess said. "And what I'm changing is more of a common sense thing. Sloth invades Neopia, you stop him. Simple."

"You mean, Sloth _invaded_ Neopia, so you _go back in time and change history _to stop him."

Jess smiled. "Exactly."

"That's insane."

Jess scowled. "I don't particularly want you to be tortured, you know. Or Tigger. Or me, for that matter."

"But you can't change anything," Blanche argued. "It's future history. It happens. It will happen. It _has_ happened, if you account for time travel."

"When you account for time travel," Jess snapped angrily, "It hasn't happened. Therefore, we can change it."

"Not without serious repercussions."

"Such as?"

"A wound in time," Blanche replied calmly. "You would have diverted history from its usual course. That in itself is a serious repercussion. No one knows what happens when you do that, because no one has been stupid enough to try it." She gloated at her owner, apparently convinced she had just won the argument.

Jess wasn't so worried. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

Blanche sighed. "I wish we wouldn't have to come to it at all!"

"Tell me, Blanche," Jess said, "when I first approached you here, and when I told you I was from the future, _what did you think I was doing?_"

"I thought you were _causing_ history," Blanche said simply.

"And that stuff about Sloth did? What did you make of that if you thought I was causing history?"

"I don't know," Blanche protested. "Artistic license? Dramatic effect?"

Jess put her head in her hands. "And the bit about the torture?"

Blanche sighed. "You're going to keep pestering me about this, aren't you?"

"Undoubtedly."

Blanche stared at Jess. "Well then, let me pester you about something. Are we going yet?"

"What?" Jess asked. "Oh. The air vent."

"Exactly," Blanche replied. "Well, are we?"

Jess cast a glance over the room. "Now let's see. What do we have?" She put together a pile of tables and chairs. "That should do it."

Blanche wasn't so sure. "You go first," she instructed. Jess shrugged and did so.

"Now hurry up!" Jess chided, turning around and crawling away. Reluctantly, Blanche followed, startled to find that the pile didn't crash to the floor.

The two girls crawled through the vent and eventually got to the end, but there was a large obstacle there...

"Sloth!" Jess hissed angrily. "Not again!"

"Again?"

"Or should I say, not for the first time. Keep quiet... he might go away eventually."

Sloth had absolutely no intention of going away eventually, and instead opened the air vent slightly to put in a small dish with an unknown – solid – substance in it. He then walked away.

"Righteo," Jess said, watching him go, "let's move forward."

"What's in the dish?"

"How am I supposed to know?" Jess hissed back. "I'm sure it's harmless."

"It's _smoking_."

Jess stared at the little dish and had to concede that white smoke did appear to be spilling out of it. "Blanche, what else can we do? If we go back, the smoke'll just follow us. There isn't another air vent in that room, and besides we can't live on coffee. We move forward."

Blanche rolled her eyes, but being behind Jess Jess didn't see it. "Fine, mum," she hissed.

Jess took that as an invitation to move forward, but halted as she reached the dish.

"I can't breathe," Jess protested, coughing. "Well, I can, obviously, but... no... oxygen..."

Blanche, to her own annoyance, started coughing also. "Can you open the grille?"

Jess pushed at it pathetically. "No." She then proceeded to slump onto the bottom of the vent, out of air. Blanche did the same.

Unseen by both, Sloth returned and calmly opened the grille, taking the dish away. "Carbon dioxide," he said allowed, "sublimates at a temperature much cooler than room temperature." Pleased with himself, he grinned at the two helpless girls. "And you, Jess, shall not change history."


	17. A Shoplifting Class

Jess didn't even bother to open her eyes when she woke up. She could tell that she was lying down, and also that she'd been knocked unconscious.

"I have to stop doing that," she said aloud, sitting up at the same time. "Maybe being knocked unconscious once, or possibly twice, would be fine. But _four times_. That's a little too much. With the ray gun thing. From the pain. From that stupid drug. And now, from..." she thought. "Whatever it was."

"Carbon dioxide," came a helpful voice.

"Right," Jess said. "So that's once with a stun gun, twice from pain, thrice from the memory-inducing drug, and four from carbon dioxide." She paused slightly. "I think opening my eyes would be a sensible thing to do about now." She decided to take her own excellent advice and saw an incredibly grumpy Blanche sitting in front of her. "What's wrong, Blanche?"

"Well, we've been taken prisoner by Sloth," Blanche replied. "That's hardly cause for celebration."

Jess waved a hand. "I've been taken prisoner by Sloth so many times in the last two days that it doesn't really bother me any more."

"That hardly makes it less bothersome," Blanche said grumpily. "What do you plan on doing, eh?"

"I'll write my article!" Jess beamed, reaching into her pocket for her notepad and pen. "Excellent. Sloth didn't confiscate anything..."

And so Jess set to work, dithering about various phrases and spellings, and persuading her Uni to let her have the chair. Several hours later, she grinned triumphantly as her masterpiece – an article of nearly 1,500 words – was finished.

"Great, mum," Blanche remarked acidly. "Now what?"

A still-grinning Jess looked up. "Sorry?"

"It's not like there's a mailbox or a Neopian Times office block in here. And I hardly think Sloth will let you submit articles to the Times about his dastardly plans," Blanche reasoned.

"Oh, you always have to take the fun out of everything," Jess chided.

"I'm right though, aren't I?" Blanche asked smugly.

"I suppose," Jess grumbled. Then she screamed loudly.

"What is it, mum?" Blanche asked worriedly. Jess smiled.

"Practising my screaming," she admitted sheepishly, following that statement up with another scream.

Blanche was rather irritated now, and her ears hurt. "What," she said angrily, "is the use in that?"

"Well, logically," Jess began, "some one will hear us scream. Even in space, _someone_ has to hear us scream."

"Yeah. Me," Blanche stated somewhat unfairly. "You're bursting my eardrums."

Jess shrugged. "Sorry." She screamed again.

"Would you stop doing that?" Blanche demanded angrily. "As far as I was aware, the idea wasn't to annoy me."

"Exactly. It's supposed to annoy someone who can open the door."

"Oh, brilliant, mum," Blanche scoffed.

"What? I haven't got anything better to do." Jess decided another scream was in order, and so screamed another one. Blanche rolled her eyes.

"Go ahead," Blanche said. "I'll just go mad. I don't mind."

"Excellent," Jess grinned, screaming again. Blanche wondered what she'd gotten herself into.

Several minutes' worth of screaming later, an intensely annoyed Sloth stormed into the room. Jess smiled politely.

"Hi," she said. "Dropped in for a nice chat?"

"Which one of you was screaming?"

Blanche immediately pointed at Jess.

"There's loyalty for you," an apparently miffed Jess said.

"You won't change history, you know," Sloth said smugly, waving his ray gun around vaguely.

"How did you know about that?" Jess asked. "I would have thought it'd be immediately apparent only to your later self..."

"I _am_ my later self," Sloth said. "I used my gun to follow you. There are two Sloths here, also."

"What's he talking about?" Blanche hissed at Jess. "Follow you _from where?_"

"The sixty-first century," Jess replied, not bothering to hiss. "The eighty-first in my time. He," she said, pointing Sloth accusingly, "tricked the entire population of Neopia into believing he saved it from the androids he let loose."

"I didn't trick them into anything," Sloth declared. "I _did_ save Neopia from the androids. After letting them run around for a few days, of course."

Blanche looked from Jess to Sloth and back to Jess rather uncertainly. "This is confusing," she complained. "So basically, on Swimming 15 Sloth'll release a couple of millions of androids into the streets of Neopia for a few days, they kill everyone, Sloth deactivates them, six thousand years later he's honoured as a hero?"

"That's pretty much it, yeah," Jess nodded.

"And you can't stop me!" Sloth laughed maniacally. "Nothing in -"

"And don't you dare say 'nothing in the world can stop me now'," Jess chided.

"Why not?" Sloth asked. "You are in no position to order anything."

"Because," Jess declared, standing up, "whenever anyone says 'nothing in the world can stop me now' it's usually when someone stops them. To save yourself from being horribly humiliated, I suggest you never say it."

"I don't see why you'd care if I were horribly humiliated or not," Sloth said suspiciously to the girl who was now apparently using him as a wall to lean against.

"Ah, well, it never looks quite as good if you defeat an utterly humiliated villain," Jess grinned in a manner that made Sloth sure he was right in being suspicious. "It always looks _so_ much better if you beat them in their prime." She suddenly began to lean harder on the towering green scientist. "I don't feel so well," she complained.

"Ahm, well, _off my cloak!_"

Jess obeyed this instruction, however not on purpose, and whipped past Sloth's arm on her way to the floor.

Blanche jumped up in alarm. "What did you do?" she demanded at Sloth accusingly.

"For once, I didn't do anything," Sloth declared, holding both hands in the air as a surrendering gesture. Almost. As much as a captor can display to captives.

"A virus," Blanche muttered. "Your cloak has a virus on it!"

"It does not!" Sloth protested adamantly. "I keep my cloak completely clean!"

"Sure you do," Blanche remarked acidly. "Go!"

"I'm your captor!" Sloth protested. "You can't tell me when to go!"

"Go! Go! Go!" Blanche began to shout, landing blow after blow on the scientist with her hooves.

"Just so you know," Sloth declared, "I decided to go. See you, prisoners!" After a failed attempt at an evil laugh, Sloth left the room and the door closed behind him.

"Oh, mum," Blanche whimpered, "what's he done to you?"

Then Jess did a highly surprising thing. She sat up to reveal Sloth's ray gun.

"The advantages of having shoplifting as a subject at school," she declared proudly. "It's all about distraction. I knew you'd fulfil that role for me."

"What if I hadn't?" Blanche asked.

"Well, there was always a backup plan if that happened."

"Which was?"

"Shoot and run like crazy."

Blanche laughed. "Your backup plans are always so well thought-out. Anyway, aren't we going?"

"Going?" Jess asked. "Oh, of course."

Blanche nodded and walked towards the door, only to be halted.

"What do you think you're doing?" Jess asked. "That door's locked."

"But you said we could go," Blanche protested.

"Ah. Well," Jess said, "this gun travels in space as well as time. Or rather, it can teleport people in space as well as time. The gun's usually rather left behind."

"Ah," Blanche replied. "So are you going to teleport me out of here?"

"Naturally," Jess smiled. "Now, where was I in mid-afternoon on June 19?" She paused in thought. "The café," she declared proudly, "drinking tea."

She quickly adjusted the controls and fired at Blanche. Blanche faded away, and then Jess took a glance at the bright red machine.

"Now, obviously I can't use it on myself again," Jess told herself quite confidently, "so I'll just set the controls to laser and I'll be right." She adjusted a knob and started firing in a steady beam at the door, cutting a large circle into it for her to climb through.

"Now, Jess Smith," Jess told herself after climbing through the hole she'd just made, "time to find Sloth's office."


	18. The Two Jesses

Zoe Li was surprised to see Blanche appear out of thin air in the middle of an extremely busy Grundo's Café.

"Blanche!" Zoe yelled. "What are you doing, appearing out of thin air like that?"

Blanche put a hand to her head, suffering the same side-effect of dizziness that Jess had when travelling back six centuries.

"Hi, Zoe," she muttered, trying to stop herself from falling on a random Baby Bori that happened to be standing behind her. "And as for appearing out of thin air... uhh..."

Suddenly, Jess walked up to a point just behind Zoe, wearing a short red summer dress that looked like it was made in the 50's. And knowing where Jess's own mum shopped, it probably was.

"Mum," Blanche said, "you're wearing the red dress."

"Of course I'm wearing the red dress," a startled Jess replied. "What else would I be wearing?"

Well, jeans. But Blanche shook her head anyway, and said, "no matter."

"I would _hope_ it was matter," Jess protested. "Otherwise, I have a feeling I'd be wandering around in my underwear, and that is hardly what you'd call good."

Blanche laughed. "Exactly," she laughed. "Where's Saint?"

It was Zoe that answered this time. "Arguing with Alexa," she said. "About..." there was a pause as Zoe strained her memory. "Sloth, if I recall."

"Why is everything about him?" Blanche asked irritably. "As if being captured wasn't enough, now I have to..."

"You were captured by him?" Zoe and Jess asked in one voice. "When?" Jess continued.

Blanche waved a hoof. "It was a stupid idea of yours," she told Jess.

"_Mine?_" Jess demanded. "What did I do?"

"No no, mum, you in... uhh, just stick with you for now, okay?" Blanche took a breath. "Anyway, this idea was that we should escape Sloth's office through an _air vent._"

"Why would we have to escape through an air vent?" Jess asked. "And why do I _clearly remember_ _not_ being stuck in an air vent?"

"Because you haven't been stuck there yet," Blanche explained patiently.

"Fine. Why was I there?"

"Because you were going to write an article about Sloth's evil plan..."

"_What_ evil plan?" Jess asked coolly. "He's just a poor misunderstood bloke, isn't he Zoe?"

"No," Zoe replied. She had never been a large fan of Sloth.

"Yeah, well, Zoe never says what she means, so she means yes," Jess argued hastily.

"No I don't," Zoe argued.

"And that means yes, she does."

"No it doesn't, Jessie."

Jess rolled her eyes. "She's very difficult to argue with," Jess told Blanche. "She keeps agreeing with me."

"I do not!" an infuriated Zoe yelled.

"See?"

Zoe scowled at Jess. It had been confusing enough that she'd magically changed from a blue top and jeans to this 1950's-style red dress in the space of about a minute, but now she was _also_ being perfectly irritating, as only Jess could!

"Anyway," Jess continued, "where have you been, young lady?"

"Been?" Blanche asked weakly.

"Been. Yes. You've been gone eight hours," was Jess's reply. "I thought you'd gone with aussiejewel, but she came back two hours ago."

Blanche nodded. "Uh, well, after spending several hours in Sloth's office, the whole going-through-the-air-vent thing didn't work out."

Jess looked at Blanche suspiciously. "How?"

"Well, there was suddenly no oxygen there... but we woke up in a cell," she added hastily. "And then you used the stuff you learned in Drama to..."

"I haven't _done_ Drama yet," Jess pointed out. "That's next semester."

"Well then, you _have_ done Drama," Blanche argued, "when you account for time travel."

"Why would I account for time travel?" Jess asked. Blanche sighed.

"Look, don't worry about it, mum. Or you, Zoe."

Jess shrugged. "All right, then. Want a cup of tea?"

* * *

The other Jess – the one in a blue top and jeans who's been in the majority of this story – was strolling down a corridor on the top floor, gun held out in front of her so she could shoot at any passing menace. However, she had no intention of killing at any passing menace save Sloth: that was why the gun was set to 'stun'.

She hid in a convenient alcove as she heard voices around the corner, holding the gun out slightly. There shouldn't be any voices up on the top floor that wasn't Sloth's, or from members of Sloth's security, or her own. Since she was fairly sure she didn't go up to explore Sloth's level on June 19 – a day she didn't even remember due to it being wholly unremarkable, but still – she didn't think it would be her own voice. That left Sloth, or Sloth's security.

Jess closed her fingers in on the trigger, pulling it just as a twitchy Techo, talking to himself, rounded the corner. He fell to the ground and Jess stepped forward to examine him.

"Poor fella," Jess said, unintentionally in a Northern Australian accent as opposed to her native Southern one. She then continued through the corridor.

* * *

Jess eventually located Doctor Sloth, in his office (of all places...!). Then she decided to run over her plan in her mind. Step one, jump in. Step two, shoot. Yes, that was about it.

So Jess followed through with that brilliant plan.

"You've lost," she gloated at the defeated criminal. "I've beaten you." She then paused. "So what am I meant to do until July 15?" She stomped a foot in frustration. "I couldn't have drawn this out a little longer, could I?"

Luckily – or not so luckily, perhaps – Jess was almost instantaneously given something to do. She disappeared, and so did Sloth.

To appear in a land of blackness. Or, as it might more accurately be described, a void. A nothing.

Until some tables appeared, followed by some chairs. In front of the chairs, a smallish but tall platform stood, on which there was yet another chair and table combination. Surrounding the two chairs and tables plus the chair and the table on the platform, appeared a semi-circular row of desks, all made out of wood.

Then, a person appeared, seated on the chair on the platform. He was about fifty or fifty-five, with grey hair: he wore an official-looking white, red and gold uniform. He spoke with a voice Jess instantly disliked: a pompous, arrogant tone.

"Let there be order," the man declared. Suddenly, the rows around the three were filled up with various people – all men, Jess noted – who were quite pleasantly chatting with each other. They all hushed as they eventually realised where they were.

"Sit," the man on the platform bellowed. A bewildered Jess complied, and was absolutely amazed to see Sloth doing so as well – apparently fully healthy.

"Let the trial begin," was the man's third declaration, holding both hands up in the air as he declared it.

"Excuse me," Jess interjected suddenly. "Forgive my obvious ignorance, but where are we, and why are we here exactly? And who are you?"

"I am Kayandi," the man declared grandly. "We are all in a telepathic plane, called into existence by the force of my will. And we are here," he said pointedly, "to try both of you for meddling in time."

"Meddling in time?" Jess asked, flabbergasted. "That is not a good enough reason to call into existence a temporary plane and kidnap people from random places..."

"It is," Kayandi declared. "And if that is all you wish to query, I suggest we get along with the trial."

"And another thing, why are we being tried together?" Jess asked. "You said _trial_, not _trials_. I refuse to be tried with such a criminal."

"You are both criminals," Kayandi declared levelly. "You committed the same crime. You sacrificed innocents in your quest to defeat each other. You will receive the same verdict."

Now Jess was really horrified, and she could just tell from the emotion in the air – heightened by the fact that it was in a telepathic dimension – that Sloth was experiencing the same emotion.

If they didn't work together, they would both have highly unlikely chances of returning to Neopia.

But if they did, Sloth would be free to push world domination on Neopia.

Jess hated moral dilemmas.


	19. The Telepathic Plane

"So," Kayandri declared in his usual arrogant tone, "we shall call the first witness forward."

"Witness...?" Jess asked vaguely, but her barely spoken question was soon answered as Christine Li of 6081 suddenly appeared – along with a platform similar to Kayandri's, but smaller. Considering she had just been zapped into a black nothingness, Jess thought she looked rather unconcerned.

"Are you Miss Christine Li?" Kayandri asked the newcomer. Christine looked at him vaguely.

"Yes," Christine replied, "I am."

"Excellent," Kayandri replied, consulting some notes. "It says here that Miss Smith asked you about travelling through time. Can you recall that, Miss Li?"

"I can," came the perfectly unconcerned response. Maybe she was hypnotised...?

"Would you mind relating that conversation to us?" Kayandri asked. Jess had the suspicion that he already knew.

"Certainly," Christine replied. "Firstly, Miss Smith said, 'Christine, what would you do if you were given the opportunity to travel through time?'" After a sufficient pause, Christine continued. "I replied, 'it would depend what the time was. I think it would be great fun to fight in the wars of the first century.'"

Jess happened to remember this conversation also, and she felt Christine wasn't doing it nearly enough justice. Besides, she called her _'Miss Smith'_.

"And then what did Miss Smith say?" Kayandri prompted Christine.

"Miss Smith said, 'you are a lot like Zoe.'"

"And who is Zoe exactly?"

"My two hundred and thirty-five times great grandmother," Christine answered.

"So," Kayandri said, "she told you things about the past people of your time had forgotten."

"That is correct."

"If I can say something," Jess butted in, rising to her feet, "I would -"

"You may not," Kayandri answered curtly.

"That isn't fair," Jess protested. "I want Christine to -"

"You may not," Kayandri repeated, a little more firmly than the first time. Jess shrugged and angrily sank back into her chair.

"Miss Li," Kayandri continued in his highly irritating tone, "I would like you to tell me about what developments Doctor Sloth has given your civilisation."

"Many," Christine replied in her usual distant voice. "Doctor Sloth has developed the gift of immortality, barring accidents. I am one hundred and fifty-three."

"Has Sloth made any developments on time travel?" Kayandri asked airily.

"No," was Christine's simple response, "he has not."

That wasn't the answer Kayandri was after at all. "Are you sure?" he spluttered.

"Yes," Christine replied.

"Very well," Kayandri fumed. "You are dismissed, Miss Li."

Christine faded away, but Jess was not at all happy.

"I wanted to question her!" Jess protested.

"You are the defence. You may not call witnesses."

"But can't the defence _defend?_" Jess pressed angrily. She felt this trial was something of a sham.

"The defence may defend so long as they do not call any witness save themselves," Kayandri replied.

"That's a ridiculous rule," Jess protested.

"It is the law."

"Very well," Jess fumed, intensely irritated. "I call Doctor Frank Sloth."

Sloth was not the happiest of people with this announcement, but he disappeared, instantaneously reappearing in the seat Christine had previously occupied.

"Hey!" Sloth exclaimed. "What did you call me for?"

Jess stared coolly at the evil scientist. She wondered for a moment what would happen if she incriminated him, wondered what his reaction would have been – but that was a ridiculous idea because, after all, the two of them were going to have to share the same verdict.

"Are you Doctor Frank Sloth?" Kayandri questioned him.

"Yes, of course," Sloth snapped irritably.

"Excellent." Kayandri made a note of this. "You will now be attached to a truth meter."

"Why?" Sloth demanded.

"Because the defence are not trustworthy enough to be allowed benefit of the doubt," Kayandri replied. "All attached. You may proceed, Miss Smith."

"Right," Jess nodded. "Dr. Sloth, what did you do in first century Neopia when you went there?"

"Not a lot," Sloth admitted. "Firstly I captured you and your Uni, then you escaped me, then I was killed."

Kayandri checked a new note. "Not detected," he declared loudly. "Repeat your answer, Doctor Sloth."

Sloth sighed impatiently. "Not a lot. Firstly I captured Miss Smith and her Uni, then they escaped me, and then I was killed."

Kayandri analysed yet another new note. "Not detected," he boomed. Suddenly breaking his obnoxious, pompous attitude, he spluttered, "I don't believe it. It's unbelievable."

"That is what unbelievable means," Jess replied. "What happened?"

"Our telepathic field says that Sloth is incapable of telling a lie... or truth."

Sloth was puzzled. "Of course I can," he snapped.

"It indicates that you are displaying no brain activity commonly found in situations of lying or truth-telling," Kayandri continued. "In fact..." Kayandri looked up. "You register no brain activity at all."

"Maybe it has something to do with the fact I'm dead?" Sloth snorted. Kayandri waved a hand.

"You were not dead," Kayandri snapped. "You were inactive."

"Inactive?" Jess asked. "He wasn't inactive, he was dead. He was bloody dead. I killed him."

"He was not dead," Kayandri insisted, "and he was never alive."

"Never alive...?" Jess's voice trailed off. "The androids!" she declared suddenly. "You didn't _create_ the androids, you _are_ an android!"

"How dare you?" Sloth demanded violently from his platform. "I'm the Doctor, girl, whether you like it or not."

Jess pursed her lips. "The androids were programmed to believe themselves to be the originals," she pointed out stubbornly. "You're an android, Sloth mk.II. Get used to it."

"All the reading indicate Miss Smith is correct," Kayandri agreed. "Activating electric cut-off zone now."

There was a crackle and suddenly Sloth slumped forward, unmoving, apparently dead...

...but he was never alive.

"This'll take _years_ to unravel," Jess moaned. "And worse still, I've just found out that I never even started to solve anything." She flashed Kayandri a cheeky grin. "I suppose it doesn't matter, though."

"We are not without consciences," Kayandri told the young girl seriously. "We understand your motivation for transgressing this highly important law was not greed, nor evil, nor a horrible sense of humour: it was good. You understood the risks of your actions and you accepted them."

"I did?" Jess asked curiously. "I don't remem -" she suddenly realised what she was saying, broke off and coughed. "I did."

Kayandri nodded. "However, it is also law that all transgressions of the law must be punished."

"Naturally," Jess agreed. "So what's going to happen to me, then? Do I have to reanimate all the two million or so people in suspended animation?"

"What a ridiculous waste of talent that would be."

"Ridiculous... waste of... talent?" Jess had not minutes before thought Kayandri was a pompous, self-obsessed idiot. "What are you, a Time Lord?"

Kayandri smiled a rare smile. "Of course not," he assured her. "They belong to another universe, and not this."

"Right," Jess said uncertainly. "So what are you going to do with me, then?"

"Examine your right wrist."

With a bewildered glance at Kayandri, Jess obeyed and noticed a thick silver band around it. "What is it?"

"With this," Kayandri proclaimed with false grandeur, "we can call you anywhere in the universe, at any time, to help us out in a crisis."

"So that's my punishment?" Jess asked. "To risk my life five times a day?"

"If you're going to go with that description," Kayandri replied. "We might leave you on Neopia for the time being, though."

"Excellent," Jess smiled. "So... that's settled, then."

"It is."

"When will you return me?"

"Swimming 15, year 7," Kayandri smiled. "At the moment the you that should exist in that time stream disappears."

"No no no, I mean, when in _my_ time stream?"

"Oh, Kayandri replied. "In a few seconds, I should imagine. Goodbye, Miss Smith."

With a final smile, Jess felt herself disappearing and fading away, to find herself in the living room, surrounded by four curious pets.

"_Mum,_" aussiejewel drawled with false grandeur, "I simply _have_ to buy some more make-up today."

Even accounting for time travel, suspended animation, time streams and paradoxes, some things never change.


End file.
